OEICT* 




li^.iMILV n.5UCfe.T3a^''0PTK^ B g^r CO?\R,g>^ ^-STA^py^F^ l-:TEB$>.TVJft,e 




it 
If' 

1^ 



T«l. e, N«. 85a, Oct. 19, 1883. Animal Subscription, $£0.00. yt 

CRITICAL 

REVIEWS.I 

BT 

W. M. THACKERAY. 



ir 



tered at the Post Office, N. Y., as second-cloas matter, tfm 
Copjri^rht. 1883, by Johk W. Loveix Co. •* 



css^NHW VOKK=S 








neat CLOTH BIKDIN6 for this volume can b« obtained from any bookseller or newsdealer, price I Sets. 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY.-CATALOGUE. 



Hyperion; by H. "W, Longfellow.. 20 
Outre-Mer, by H. W. LongfeJlovv.20 

Q'he Happy Boy, by BjOruson 10 

Arne, by BjOruson 10 

Frankeusteiu, by Mrs. Shelley... 10 

The Laet of the Mohicans 20 

Clytie, by Joseph Hatton.. ..1.20 
The Moonstone, by (, olline,P't I.IO 
The Moonstone, by Collins, P'tll. 10 
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. 20 

The Coming Race, by Lytton 10 

Leila, by Lorri Lytton — - 10 

The Three Spaniards, by Walker. 20 
TheTricks of the GreeksUnveiled.20 
L' Abbe Con Stan tin, by Halevy..20 
Freckles, by R. F. Redcliff. . ..20 
The Dark Colleen, by Harriett Jay.20 
They Were Married! by Walter 

Besant and James Rice 10 

Seekers after God, by Farrar 20 

The Spanish Nun. byDcQuincey.lO 

The Green Mountain Boys 20 

Fleurette, by Eugene Scribe 20 

Second Thoughts, by Broughton.20 
The New Magdalen, by Collins.. 20 

Divorce, by Margaret Lee 20 

Life of Washington, by Henlev. .20 
Social Etiquette, by Mrs. Saville.15 
Single Heart and Double Face.. 10 

Irene, by Carl Detlef 20 

Vice Versa, by F. Anstey . ....... 20 

Ernest Maltravers, by Lord LyttongO 
The Haunted Hoiise and Calderon 

the Courtier, by Lord Lytton.. 10 
John Halifax, by Mif^s Mulock. ..20 

800 Leagues on the Amazon 10 

The Cryptogram, by Jules Verne.lO 

Life of Marion, by Horry 20 

Paul and Virginia 10 

Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens.. 2 i 

The Hermits, by Kingsley 20 

An Adventure in Thule, and Mar- 
riage of Moira Fergus, Black .10 

A Marriage in High Life .20 

Robin, by Mrs. Parr 20 

Two on a Tower, by Thos Hardy.20 
Easselas, by Samuel Johnson — 10 
Alice, or, the Mysteries, being 

Part II. of Ernest Maltravers. .20 
Duke of Kandos, by A. Mathey.. 20 

Baron Munchausen 10 

A Princess of Thule, by Black.. 20 
The Secret Despatch, by Grant, 20 
Early Days of Christianity, by 

Canon Farrar, D D Part I. . . .20 
Early Days of Christianitv , Pt. 11.20 
Vicar of VVaketidd, by Goldsmith. 10 
Progress and Poverty, by Henry 

George 20 

The Spy, by Cooper 20 

East Lynne, by Mrs. Wood... 20 
A Strange Story, by Lord Lytton.. .20 

Adam Bede, by Eliot, Part 1 15 

Adam Bede, Part II 15 

The Golden Shaft, by Gibbon. . . .20 

Portia, by T!ie Duchess 20 

Last Day* of Pompeii, by Lytton.. 20 
Tho Two Duchesses, by Mathey. .20 
Tom Brown* School Days 20 



The Wooing O't, by Mrs. Alex- 
ander, Parti 15 

The Wooing O't, Part II 15 

The Vendetta, by Balzac SO 

Hypatia,byChas.Kingsley,P'tI.15 

Hypatia, by Kingsley, Part II 15 

Selma, by Mrs. J . G. Smith 15 

Margaret and her Bridesmaids. .20 
Horse Shoe Robinson, Parti. ...15 
Horse Shoe Robinson, Part II. . . 15 

Gulliver's Travels, by Swift 20 

Amoe Barton, by George Eliot... 10 

The Berber , by W . E . May o 20 

Silas Marner, by George Eliot. ..10 

The Queen of the County 20 

Life of Cromwell, by Hood... 15 
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. 20 

Child's History of England 20 

Molly Bawn, by The Duchess. . .20 

Pillone, by William BergsOe 15 

Phyllis, by The Duchess 20 

Romola, by Geo. Eliot, Pait I. . .15 
Eomola, by Geo. Eliot, Part II.. 15 

Science in Short Chapters 20 

Zanoni, by Lord Lytton 20 

A Daughter of Heth 20 

The Right and Wrong Uses of 
the Bible, R. Heber Newton... 20 

Night and Morning, Pt. 1 15 

Night and Morning. Part II 15 

Shandon Bells, by Wm. Black.. 20 

Monica, by the Duchess 10 

Heart and'Science, by Collins. . .20 
The Golden Calf, by Braddon. . .20 

The Dean's Daughter 20 

Mrs. Geoffrey, by the Duchess. .20 

Pickwick Papers, Pait 1 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part II 20 

Airy, Fairy Lilian, -.he Duchess. 20 
McLeod of Dare, by Wm. Black. 20 
Tempest Tcgsed, by Tilton.P't I 20 
Tempest Tossed,byTilton,P't II 20 
Letters from High Latitudes, by 

Lord Dufferin 20 

Gideon Fleyce, by Lucy 20 

India and Ceylon, by E. H£eckel..20 

The Gvp<v Queen .20 

The Admiral's Ward 20 

Mraport, by EL. Bynner, P'tI..16 
Nimport,byE.L.Bynuer,PtII.15 

Harry Holbrooke 20 

Tritons, by E.L. Bynner, P'tl. ..15 
Tritons, by E.L. Bynner, P til.. 15 
Let Nothing You Dismay, by 

Walter Besant 10 

Lady Audley's Secret, by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

Woman's Place To-day, by Mrs. '' 

Lillie De vereux Blake 20 

Dunallan, by Kennedy, Parti. . .1'> 
Dunailan, by Kennedy, Part II. . 15 
Housekeeping and Home-mak- 
ing, by Marion Harland IS 

NoNewThing.by W.E.Norris.20 

The Spoopendyke Papers 20 

False Hopes, by Goldwin Smith. 16 

Labor and Capital 20 

Wanda by Ouida, Part 1 15 

Wanda, by Ouida, Part II 16 



THE 



SEcOiND Funeral of Napoleon 



BY 

MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH. 



CRITICAL REVIEWS 



I5Y 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELI. COMPANY, 

14 an:: £6 Vksey Street. 

\ 



.<: 



,^,^ 






THE 
SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON, 



ON THE DISINTERMENT OF NAPOLEON AT 
ST. HELENA. 

My Dear , — It is no easy task in this world to distinguish 

between what is great in it, and what is mean ; and many and 
many is the puzzle tliat I have had in reading History (or the 
works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I 
should laud up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my 
small capabilities, to imitate the remarkable character about 
whom I was reading, or whether I should fling aside the book 
and the hero of it, as things altogether base, unworthy, laugh- 
able, and get a novel, or a game of billiards, or a pipe of tobacco, 
or the report of the last debate in the House, or any other 
employment which would leave the mind in a state of easy 
vacuity, rather than pester it with a vain set of dates relating 
to actions which are in themselves not worth a fig, or with a 
parcel of names of people whom it can do one no earthly good 
to remember. 

It is more than probable, my love, that you are acquainted 
with what is called Grecian and Roman history, chiefly from 
perusing, in very early youth, the little sheepskin-bound vol- 
umes of the ingenious Dr. Goldsmith, and have been indebted 
for your knowledge of our English annals to a subsequent study 
of the more voluminous works of Hume and Smollett. The 
first and the last-named authors, dear Miss Smith, have written 
each an admirable history, — that of the reverend Dr. Primrose, 
Vicar of Wakefield, and that of Mr. Robert Bramble, of Bramble 



554 ^^^^ SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

Hall — in both of which w9rks you will find true and instructive 
pictures of human life, and which you may always think over 
with advantage. But let me caution you against putting any 
considerable trust in the other works of these authors, which 
were placed in your hands at school and afterwards, and in 
which you were taught to believe. Modern historians, for the 
most part, know very little, and, secondly, only tell a little of 
what they know. 

As for those Greeks and Romans whom you have read of 
in "sheepskin," were you to know really what those monsters 
were, you would blush all over as red as a hollyhock, and put down 
the history-book in a fury. Many of our English worthies are no 
better. You are not in a situation to know the real characters of 
any one of them. They appear before you in their public 
capacities, but the individuals you know not. Suppose, for 
instance, your mamma had purchased her tea in the Borough 
from a grocer living there by the name of Greenacre : suppose 
you had been asked out to dinner, and the gentleman of the 
house had said ; " Ho ! Francois ! a glass of champagne for Miss 
Smith ; " — Courvoisier would have served you just as any other 
footman would : you w^ould never have known that there was 
anything extraordinary in these individuals, but would have 
thought of them only in their respective public characters of 
Grocer and Footman. This, Madam, is History, in which a man 
always appears dealing with the world in his apron, or his laced 
livery, but which has not the power or the leisure, or, perhaps, 
is too high and mighty to condescend to follow and study him 
in his privacy. Ah, my dear, when big and little men come to 
be measured rightly, and great and small actions to be weighed 
properly, and people to be stripped of their royal robes, beggars' 
rags, generals' uniforms, seedy out-at-elbowed coats, and the 
like — or the contrary say, when souls come to be stripped of 
their wicked deceiving bodies, and turned out stark naked as 
they were before they were born — what a strange startling sight 
shall we see, and what a pretty figure shall some of us cut ! 
Fancy how we shall see Pride, with his Stultz clothes and pad- 
ding pulled off, and dwindled down to a forked radish ! Fancy 
some Angelic virtue, whose white raiment is suddenly w^hisked 
over his head, showing us cloven feet and a tail ! Fancy Humil- 
ity, eased of its sad load of cares and want and scorn, walking 
up to the very highest place of all, and blushing as he takes it ! 
Fancy, — but we must not fancy such a scene at all, which would 
be an outrage on public decency. Should we be any better than 
our neighbors ? No, certainly. And as we can't be virtuous 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 555. 

let us be decent. Fig-leaves are a very decent, becoming wear, 
and have been now in fashion for four thousand years. And 
so, my dear, History is written on fig-leaves. Would you have 
anything further ? Oh fie ! 

' Yes, four thousand years ago, that famous tree was planted. 
At their very first lie, our first parents made for it, and there it is 
still the great Humbug Plant, stretching its wide arms, and shel- 
tering beneath its leaves, as broad and green as ever, all the 
generations of men. Thus, my dear, coquettes of your fascina- 
ting sex cover their persons with figgery, fastastically arranged, 
and call their masquerading, modesty. Cowards fig themselves 
out fiercely as " salvage men," and make us believe that they are 
warriors. Fools look very solemnly out from the dusk of the 
leaves, and we fancy in the gloom that they are sages. And 
many a man sets a great wreath about his pate and struts abroad 
a hero, whose claims we would all of us laugh at, could we but 
remove the ornament and see his numskull bare. 

And such — ("excuse my sermonizing) — such is the constitution 
of mankind, that men have, as it were, entered into a compact 
among themselves to pursue the fig-leaf system^ routra?ice, and 
to cry down all who oppose it. Humbug they will have. ^ Hum- 
bugs themselves, they will respect humbugs. Their daily vict- 
uals of life must be seasoned with humbug. Certain things are 
there in the world that they will not allow to be called by their 
right names, and will insist upon our admiring, whether we will 
or no. Woe be to the man who would enter too far into the 
recesses of that magnificent temple where our Goddess is en- 
shrined, peep through the vast embroidered curtains indiscreetly, 
penetrate the secret of secrets, and expose the Gammon of Gam- 
mons ! And as you must not peer too curiously within, so nei- 
ther must you remain scornfully without. Humbug-worshippers, 
let us come into our great temple regularly and decently : take 
our seats, and settle our clothes decently ; open our books, and go 
through the service with decent gravity ; listen, and be decently 
affected by the expositions of the decent priest of the place ; 
and if by chance some straggling vagabond, loitering in the sun- 
shine out of doors, dares to laugh or to sing, and disturb the 
sanctified dulness of the faithful ; — quick ! a couple of big beadles 
rush out and belabor the wretch, and his yells make our devo- 
tions more comfortable. 

Some magnificent religious ceremonies of this nature are at 
present taking place in France ; and thinking that you might 
perhaps while away some long winter evening with an account 
of them, I have compiled the following pages for your use. 



c^6 77-^-^ SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON, 

Newspapefs have been fiTlecl, for some days past, with details 
regarding the Saint Helena expedition, many pamphlets have 
been published, men go about crying little books and broad- 
sheets filled with real or sham particulars ; and from these scarce 
and valuable documents the following pages are chiefly compiled. 

We must begin at the beginning ; premising, in the first place, 
that Monsieur Guizot, when French Ambassador at London, 
waited upon Lord Palmerston with a request that the body of 
the Emperor Napoleon should be given up to the French nation, 
in order that it might find a final resting-place in French earth. 
To this demand the English Goyerninent gave a ready assent ; 
nor was there any particular explosion of sentiment upon either 
side, only some pretty cordial expressions of mutual good-will. 
Orders were sent out to St. Helena that the corpse should be 
disinterred in due time, when the French expedition had arrived 
in search of it, and that every respect and attention should be 
paid to those who came to carry back to their country the body 
of the famous dead warrior and sovereign. 

This matter being arranged in very few words (as in England, 
upon most points, is the laudable fashion), the French Cham- 
bers began to debate about the place in which they should bury 
the body when they got it ; and numberless pamphlets and 
newspapers out of doors joined in the talk. Some people there 
were who had fought and conquered and been beaten with the 
great Napoleon, and loved him and his memory. Many more were 
there who, because of his great genius and valor, felt exces- 
sively proud in their own particular persons, and clamored 
for the return of their hero. And if there were some few indi- 
viduals in this great hot-headed, gallant, boasting, sublime, absurd 
French nation, who had taken a cool view of the dead Emperor's 
character ; if, perhaps, such men as Louis Philippe, and Mon- 
sieur A. Thiers, Minister and Deputy, and Monsieur Francois 
Guizot, Deputy and Excellency, had, from interest or conviction, 
opinions at all differing from those of the majority ; why, they 
knew what was what, and kept their opinions to themselves, 
coming with a tolerably good grace and flinging a few handfuls 
of incense upon the altar of the popular idol. 

In the succeeding debates, then, various opinions were given 
with regard to the place to be selected for the Emperor's sepul- 
ture. " Some demanded," says an eloquent anonymous Captain 
in the Navy who has written an " Itinerary from Toulon to St. 
Helena," " that the coffin should be deposited under the bronze 
taken from the enemy by the French army — under the Column 
of the Place Vendome. The idea was a fine one. This is the 



THE SECOMD FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. ^^7 

most glorious monument that was ever raised in a conqueror's 
honor. This column has been melted out of foreign cannon. 
These same cannons have furrowed the bosoms of our braves 
with noble cicatrices ; and this metal — conquered by the 
soldier first, by the artist afterwards — has allowed to be im- 
printed on its front its own defeat and our glory. Napoleon 
might sleep in peace under this audacious trophy. But would 
his ashes find a shelter sufficiently vast beneath this pedestal ? 
And his puissant statue dominating Paris, beams with sufficient 
grandeur on this place : whereas the wheels of carriages and 
the feet of passengers would profane the funereal sanctity of the 
spot in trampling on the soil so near his head," 

You must not take this description, dearest Amelia, " at the 
foot of the letter," as the French phrase it, but you will here 
have a masterly exposition of the arguments for and against the 
burial of the Emperor under the column of the Place Ven- 
dome. The idea was a fine one, granted ; but, like all other 
ideas, it was open to objections. You must not fancy that the 
cannon, or rather the cannon-balls, were in the habit of furrow- 
ing the bosoms of French braves, or any other braves, with 
cicatrices : on the contrary, it is a known fact that cannon-balls 
make wounds, and not cicatrices (which, my dear, are w^ounds 
partially healed) ; nay, that a man generally dies after receiving 
one such projectile on his chest, much more after having his 
bosom farrowed by a score of them. No, my love ; no bosom, 
however heroic, can stand such applications, and the author 
only means that the French soldiers faced the cannon and took 
them. Nor, my love, must you suppose that the column was 
melted : it was the cannon was melted, not the column ; but such 
phrases are often used by orators when they wish to give a par- 
ticular force and emphasis to their opinions. 

Well, again, although Napoleon might have slept in peace 
under " this audacious trophy," how could he do so and car- 
ages go rattling by all night, and people with great iron heels 
to their boots pass clattering over the stones ? Nor indeed 
could it be expected that a man whose reputation stretches 
from the Pyramids to the Kremlin, should find a column of 
which the base is only five-and-twenty feet square, a shelter 
vast enough for his bones. In a word, then, although the 
proposal to bury Napoleon under the column was ingenious, 
it was found not to suit ; whereupon somebody else proposed 
the Madelaine. 

" It was proposed," says the before-quoted author with his 
usual felicity, " to consecrate the Madelaine to his exiled manes " 



558 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

— that is,* to his bones wffen they were not in exile any longer. 
'' He ought to have, it was said, a temple entire. His glory 
fills the world. His bones could not contain themselves in the 
coffin of a man — in the tomb of a king ! " In this case what 
was Mary Magdalen to do ? " This proposition, I am happy to 
say, was rejected, and a new one — that of the President of the 
Council — adopted. Napoleon and his braves ought not to quit 
each other. Under the immense gilded dome of the Invalides 
he would find a sanctuary worthy ot himself. A dome imitates 
the vault of heaven, and that vault alone " (meaning of course 
the other vault) " should dominate above his head. His old 
mutilated Guard shall watch around him : the last veteran, as 
he has shed his blood in his combats, shall breathe his last sigh 
near his tomb, and all these tombs shall sleep under the tattered 
standards that have been won from all the nations of Europe." 

The original words are " sous les lambeaux crible's des dra- 
peaux cueillis chez toutes les nations ;" in English, " under the 
riddled rags of the flags that have been culled or plucked " 
(like roses or buttercups) " in all the nations." Sweet, innocent 
flowers of victory ! there they are, my dear, sure enough, and a 
pretty considerable hortus sirens may any man examine who 
chooses to walk to the Invalides. The burial-place being thus 
agreed on, the expedition was prepared, and on the 7th July 
the " Belle Poule " frigate, in company with " La Favorite " 
corvette, quitted Toulon harbor. A couple of steamers, the 
" Trident " and the " Ocean," escorted the ships as far as Gibral- 
tar, and there left them to pursue their voyage. 

The two ships quitted the harbor in the sight of a vast coi> 
course of people, and in the midst of a great roaring of cannons. 
Previous to the departure of the " Belle Poule," the Bishop of 
Frejus went on board, and gave to the cenotaph, in which the 
Emperor's remains were to be deposited, his episcopal benedic- 
tion. Napoleon's old friends and followers, the two Bertrands, 
Gourgaud, Emanuel Las Cases, " companions in exile, or sons 
of the companions in exile of the prisoner of the infame 
Hudson," says a French writer, were passengers on board the 
frigate. Marchand, Denis, Pierret, Novaret, his old and faith- 
ful servants, were likewise in the vessel. It was commanded 
by his Royal Highness Francis Ferdinand Philip Louis Marie 
d'Orleans, Prince de Joinville, a young prince two-and-twenty 
years of age, who was already distinguished in the ser\dce of 
his country and king. 

On the 8th of October, after a voyage of six-and-sixty days, 
the '' Belle Poule " arrived in James Town, harbor ; and on its 



7^}TE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON 



559 



arrival, as on its departure from France, a great firing of guns 
took place. First, the " Oreste " French brig-of-war began roar- 
ing out a salutation to the frigate ; then the " Dolphin " English 
schooner gave her one-and-twenty guns ; then the frigate returned 
the compliment of the " Dolphin " schooner ; then she blazed 
out one-and-twenty guns more, as a mark of particular politeness 
to the shore — which kindness the forts acknowledged by similar 
detonations. 

These little compliments concluded on both sides. Lieutenant 
Middlemore, son and aide-de-camp of the Governor of St. 
Helena, came on board the French frigate, and brought his 
father's best respects to his Royal Highness. The Governor 
was at home ill, and forced to keep his room ; but he had 
made his house at James Town ready for Captain Joinville and 
his suite, and begged that they would make use of it during 
their stay. 

On the 9th, H. R. H. the Prince of Joinville put on his full 
uniform and landed, in company with Generals Bertrand and 
Gourgaud, Baron Las Cases, M. Marchand, M. Coquereau, the 
chaplain of the expedition, and M. de Rohan Chabot, who acted 
as chief mourner. All the garrison were under arms to receive 
the illustrious Prince and the other members of the expedition 
— who forthwith repaired to Plantation House, and had a con- 
ference with the Governor regarding their mission. 

On the loth, nth, 12th, these conferences continued : the 
crews of the French ships were permitted to come on shore and 
see the tomb of Napoleon. Bertrand, Gourgaud, Las Cases 
wandered about the island and visited the spots to which they 
had been partial in the lifetime of the Emperor. 

The 15th October was fixed on for the day of the exhumation : 
that day five-and-twenty years, the Emperor Napoleon first set 
his foot upon the island. 

On the day previous all things had been made ready : the 
grand coffins and ornaments brought from France, and the ar- 
ticles necessary for the operation were carried to the valley of 
the Tomb. 

The operations commenced at midnight. The well-known 
friends of Napoleon before named and some other attendants of 
his, the chaplain and his acolytes, the doctor of the " Belle 
Poule," the captains of the French ships, and Captain Alexander 
of the Engineers, the English Commissioner, attended the dis- 
interment. His Royal Highness Prince de Joinville could not be 
present because the workmen were under English command. 

The men worked for nine hours incessantly, when at length 



560 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON 

the earth' was entirely removed from the vault, all the horizontal 
strata of masonry demolished, and the large slab which covered 
the place where the stone sarcophagus lay, removed by a crane. 
This outer coffin of stone was perfect, and could scarcely be 
said to be damp. 

" As soon as the Abbe' Coquereau had recited the prayers, 
the coffin was removed with the greatest care, and carried by 
the engineer-soldiers, bareheaded, into a tent that had been 
prepared for the purpose. After the religious ceremonies, the 
inner coffins were opened. The outermost coffin was slightly 
injured : then came one of lead^ whica was in good condition, 
and enclosed two others — one of tin and one of wood. The 
last coffin was lined inside with white satin, which having become 
detached by the effect of time, had fallen upon the body and 
enveloped it like a winding-sheet, and had become slightly 
attached to it. 

" It is difficult to describe with what anxiety and emotion 
those who were present waited for the moment which v»'as to 
expose to them all that death had left of Napoleon. Notwith- 
standing the singular state of preservation of the tomb and 
coffins, we could scarcely hope to find anything but some 
misshapen remains of the least perishable part of the costume 
to evidence the identity of the body. But when Doctor Guillard 
raised the sheet of satin, an indescribable feeling of surprise 
and affection was expressed by the spectators, many of whom 
burst into tears. The Emperor was himself before their eyes ! 
The features of the face, though changed, were perfectly recog- 
nized ; the hands extremely beautiful ; his well-known costume 
had suffered but little, and the colors were easily distinguished. 
The attitude itself was full of ease, and but for the fragments 
of the satin lining which covered, as with a fine gauze, several 
parts of the uniform, we might have believed we still saw 
Napoleon before us lying on his bed of state. General Bertrand 
and M. Marchand, who were both present at the interment, 
quickly pointed out the different articles which each had de- 
posited in the coffin, and remained in the precise position in 
which they had previously described them to be. 

'' The two inner coffins were carefully closed again ; the old 
leaden coffin was strongly blocked up with wedges of wood, and 
both were once more soldered up with the most minute precau- 
tions, under the direction of Dr. Guillard. These different op- 
erations being terminated, the ebony sarcophagus was closed 
as well as its oak case. On delivering the key of the ebony 
sarcophagus to Count de Chabot, the King's Commissioner, 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 561 

Captain Alexander declared to him, in the name of the Governor^ 
that this coffin, containing the mortal remains of the Emperor 
Napoleon, was considered as at the disposal of the French 
Government from that day, and from the moment at which it 
should arrive at the place of embarkation, towards which it 
v;as about to be sent under the orders of General Middlemore. 
The King's Commissioner replied that he was charged by his 
Government, and in its name, to accept the coffin from the 
hands of the British authorities, and that he and the other 
persons composing the French mission were ready to follov/ it 
to James Town, where the Prince de Joinville, superior comman- 
dant of the expedition, would be ready to receive it and conduct 
it on board his frigate. A car drawn by four horses, decked 
with funereal emblems, had been prepared before the arrival of 
the expedition, to receive the coffin, as well as a pall, and all 
the other suitable trappings of mourning. When the sarcoph- 
agus was placed on the car, the whole was covered with a 
magnificent imperial mantle brought from Paris, the four corners 
of which were borne by Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud, Baron 
Las Cases and M. Marchand. At half-past three o'clock the 
funeral car began to move, preceded by a chorister bearing the 
cross, and the Abbe Coquereau. M. de Chabot acted as chief 
mourner. All the authorities of the island, all the principal 
inhabitants, and the whole of the garrison, followed in proces- 
sion from the tomb to the quay. But with the exception of the 
artillerymen necessary to lead tlie horses,and occasionally support 
the car when descending some steep j^arts of the way, the places 
nearest the coffin were reserved for the French mission. Gen- 
eral Middlemore, p.lthough in a weak state of health, persisted 
in following the whole way on foot, together with General 
Churchill, chief of the staff in India, who had arriv^ed only two 
days before from Bombay. The immense v/eight of the coffins, 
and the unevenness of the road, rendered the utmost carefulness 
necessary throughout the whole distance. Colonel Trelawney 
commanded in person the small detachment of artillerymen who 
conducted the car, and, thanks to his great care, not the slightest 
accident took place. From the moment of the departure to the 
arrival at the quay, the cannons of the forts and the ' Belle Poule ' 
fired minute-guns. After an hour's march the rain ceased for 
the first time since the commencement of the operations, and on 
arriving in sight of the town we found a brilliant sky and beau- 
tiful weather. Fronj the morning the three French vessels of 
war had assumed the usual signs of deep mourning : their yards 
crossed and their flags lowered. Two French merchantmen. 

36 



562 



THE SECOND FUXERAL OF NAPOLEOW 



' Bonne Amie ' and ' Indian,' which had been in the roads for two 
days, had' put themselves under the Prince's orders, and followed 
during the ceremony all the manoeuvres of the ' Belle Poule.' 
The forts of the town, and the houses of the consuls, had also 
their flags half-mast high. 

" On arriving at the entrance of the town, the troops of the 
garrison and the militia formed in two lines as far as the extrem- 
ity of the quay. -According to the order for mourning pre- 
scribed for the English army, the men had their arms reversed 
and the officers had crape on their arms, with their swords re- 
versed. All the inhabitants had be.en kept away from the line of 
march, but they lined the terraced commanding the town, and the 
streets were occupied only by the troops, the 91st Regiment being 
on the right and the militia on the left. The cortege advanced 
slowly between two ranks of soldiers to the sound of a funeral 
march, while the cannons of the forts were fired, as well as 
those of the ' Belle Poule ' and the ' Dolphin ; ' the echoes being 
repeated a thousand times by the rocks above James Town. 
After two hours' march the corte'ge stopped at the end of the 
quay, where the Prince de Joinville had stationed himself at the 
head of the officers of the three French ships of war. The 
greatest official honors had been rendered by the English 
authorities to the memory of the Emperor — the most striking 
testimonials of respect had marked the adieu given by St. 
Helena to his coffin ; and from this moment the mortal remains 
of the Emperor were about to belong to France. When the 
funeral-car stopped, the Prince de Joinville advanced alone, and 
in presence of all around, who stood with their heads uncovered, 
received, in a solemn manner, the imperial coffin from the hands 
of General Middlemore. His Royal Highness then thanked 
the Governor, in the name of France, for all the testimonials of 
sympathy and respect with which the authorities and inhabitants 
of St. Helena had surrounded the memorable ceremonial. A 
cutter had been expressly prepared to receive the coffin. During 
the embarkation, which the Prince directed himself, the bands 
played funeral airs, and all the boats were stationed round with 
their oars shipped. The moment the sarcophagus touched the 
cutter, a magnificent royal flag, which the ladies of James Town 
had embroidered for the occasion, was unfurled, and the ' Belle 
Poule ' immediately squared her masts and unfurled her colors. 
All the manoeuvres of the frigate were immediately followed by 
the other vessels. Our mourning had ceased with the exile of 
Napoleon, and the French naval division dressed itself out in 
all its festal ornaments to receive the imperial coffin under the 
French flag. The sarcophagus was covered in the cutter with 



THE SECOND EUNERAL OE NAPOLEON. 563 

the imperial mantle. The Prince de Joinville placed himself at 
the rudder, Commandant Guyet at the head of the boat ; Gen- 
erals Bertrand and Gourgaud, Baron Las Cases, M. Marchand, 
and the Abbe Coquereau occupied the same places rs during 
the march. Count Chabot and Commandant Hernotrx were 
astern, a little in advance of the Prince. As soon as the. cutter 
had pushed off from the quay, the batteries ashore fired a salute 
of twenty- one guns, and our ships returned the salute with all 
their artillery. Two other salutes were fired during the passage 
from the quay to the frigate ; the cutter advancing very slowly, 
and surrounded by the other boats. At half-past six o'clock 
it reached the ' Belle Poule,' all the men being on the yards 
with their hats in their hands. The Prince had had arranged 
on the deck a chapel, decked with flags and trophies of arms, 
the altar being placed at the foot of the mizenmast. The 
coffin, carried by our sailors, passed between two ranks of officers 
with drawn swords, and was placed on the quarter-deck. The 
absolution was pronounced by the Abbe Coquereau the saiiie 
evening. Next day, at ten o'clock, a solemn mass was celebrated 
on the deck, in presence of the officers and part of the crews of 
the ships. His Royal Highness stood at the foot of the coffin. 
The cannon of the ' Favorite ' and ' Oreste ' fired minute-guns 
during this ceremony, which terminated by a solemn absolution ; 
and the Prince de Joinville, the gentlemen of the mission, the 
officers, and \.\-\q. preinkrs viaitres of the ship, sprinkled holy water 
on tlie coffin. /\t eleven, all the ceremonies of the church were 
accon plished, all i\^ honors done to a sovereign had been paid 
to the morial remains of Napoleon. The coffin was carefully 
lowered between decks, and placed in the chapdlc ardenfe which 
had been prepared at Toulon for its reception. At this moment, 
the vessels iired a last salute with all their artillery, and the 
frigate took in her flags, keeping up only her flag at the stern 
and the royal standard at the maintopgallant-mast. On Sunday, 
the i8th, at eight in the morning, the 'Belle Poule' quitted S't. 
Helena with her precious deposit on board. 

" During the whole time that the mission remained at James 
Town, the best understanding never ceased to exist between 
the population of the island and the French. The Prince de 
Joinville and his companions met in all quarters and at all times 
with the greatest good-will and the warmest testimonials of 
sympathy. The authorities and the inhabitants must have felt, 
no doubt, great regret at seeing taken away from their island 
the coffin that had rendered it so celebrated ; but they repressed 
their feelings with a courtesy that does honor to the frankness 
ni their character." 



564 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 



^ 



11. 
ON THE VOYAGE FROM ST. HELENA TO PARIS. 

On the i8th October the French frigate quitted the island 
with its precious burden on board. 

His Royal Highness the Captain acknowledged cordially the 
kindness and attention which he and his crew had received from 
the English authorities and the inhabitants of the Island of St. 
Helena ; nay, promised a pension to an old soldier who had been 
for many years the guardian of the imperial tomb, and went so far 
as to take into consideration the petition of a certain lodging- 
house keeper, who prayed for a compensation for the loss which 
the removal of the Emperor's body would occasion to her. And 
although it was not to be expected that the great French nation 
should forego its natural desire of recovering the remains of a 
hero so dear to it for the sake of the individual interest of the 
landlady in question, it must have been satisfactory to her to 
find that the peculiarity of her position was so delicately appreci- 
ated by the august Prince who commanded the expedition, and 
carried away with him anwice. dwiidiwn suce — the half of the 
genteel independence which she derived from the situation of 
her hotel. In a word, politeness and friendship could not be 
carried farther. The Prince's realm and the landlady's were 
bound together by the closest ties of amity. M. Thiers was 
Minister of France, the great patron of the English alliance. 
At London M. Guizot was the worthy representative of the 
French good-will towards the British people : and the remark 
frequently made by our orators at public dinners, that " France 
and England, while united, might defy the world," was con- 
sidered as likely to hold good for many years to come, — the 
union that is. As for defying the world, that was neither here 
nor there ; nor did English politicians ever dream of doing any 
such thing, except perhaps at the tenth glass of port at " Free- 
mason's Tavern." 

Little, however, did Mrs. Corbett, the Saint Helena landlady, 
little did his Royal Highness Prince Ferdinand Philip Marie de 
Joinville know what was going on in Europe all this time (when 
I say in Europe, I mean in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt) ; how 
clouds, in fact, were gathering upon what you call the political 
horizon ; and how tempests were rising that were to blow to 



IH±L :>£,LUI\U t'UiyiLKAJL UI' IV Al^UjLiLUJS. 



5^5 



pieces our Anglo-Gallic temple of friendship. Oh, but it is sad 
CO think that a single wicked old Turk should be the means of 
setting our two Christian nations by the ears ! 

Yes, my love, this disreputable old man had been for some 
time past the object of the disinterested attention of the great 
sovereigns of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas (a moral charac- 
ter, though following the Greek superstition, and adored for 
his mildness and benevolence of disposition), the Emperor Fer- 
dinand, the King of Prussia, and our own gracious Queen, had 
taken such just offence at his conduct and disobedience tow- 
ards a young and interesting sovereign, whose authority he had 
disregarded, whose fleet he had kidnapped, whose fair provinces 
he had pounced upon, that they determined to come to the aid 
of Abdul Medjid the First, Emperor of the Turks, and bring his 
rebellious vassal to reason. In this project the French nation 
was invited to join ; but they refused the invitation, saying, that 
it was necessary for the maintenance of the balance of power 
in Europe that his Highness Mehemet Ali should keep posses- 
sion of what by hook or by crook he had gotten, and that they 
would have no hand in injuring him. But why continue this 
argument, which you have read in the newspapers for many 
months past ? You, my dear, must know as well as I, that the 
balance of Power in Europe could not possibly be maintained 
in any such way ; and though, to be sure, for the last fifteen 
years, the progress of the old robber has not made much dif- 
ference to us in the neighborhood of Russell Square, and the 
battle of Nezib did not in the least affect our taxes, our homes, 
our institutions, or the price of butcher's meat, yet there is no 
knowing what might have happened had Mehemet Ali been 
allowed to remain quietly as he was : and the balance of power 
in Europe might have been — the deuce knows where. 

Here, then, in a nutshell, you have the whole matter in dis- 
pute. While Mrs. Corbett and the Prince de Joinville were in- 
nocently interchanging compliments at Saint Helena, — bang ! 
bang ! Commodore Napier was pouring broadsides into Tyre 
and Sidon ; our gallant navy was storming breaches and rout- 
ing armies ; Colonel Hodges had seized upon the green stand- 
ard of Ibrahim Pacha ; and the powder-magazine of St. John 
of Acre was blown up sky-high, with eighteen hundred Egyptian 
soldiers in company with it. The French said that I'or Anglais 
had achieved all these successes, and no doubt believed that 
the poor fellows at Acre were bribed to a man. 

It must have been particularly unpleasant to a high-minded 
nation like the French — at the very moment when the Egyptiaij 



5 66 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

affair and the balance of *^urope had been settled in this abrupt 
way — to tind out all of a sudden that the Pasha of Egypt was 
their dearest friend and ally. They had suffered in the person 
of their friend ; and though, seeing that the dispute was ended, 
and the territory out of his hand, they could not hope to get it 
back for him, or to aid him ni any substantial way, yet Monsieur 
Thiers determined, just as a mark of politeness to the Pasha, to 
fight all Europe for maltreating him, — all Europe, England m- 
cluded. He was bent on war, and an immense majority of 
the nation went with him. He called for a million of soldiers, 
and would have had them too, had* not the King been against 
the project and delayed the completion of it at least for a time. 

Of these great European disputes Captain Joinville received 
a notification while he was at sea on board his frigate ; as we 
find by the official account which has been published of his 
mission. 

" Some days after quitting Saint Helena," says that docu- 
ment, " the expedition fell in with a ship coming from Europe, 
and was thus made acquainted with the warlike rumors then 
afloat, by which a collision with the English marine was ren- 
dered possible. The Prince de Joinville immediately assembled 
the officers of the ' Belle Poule,' to deliberate on an event so 
unexpected and important. 

" The council of war having expressed its opinion that it 
was necessary at all events to prepare for an energetic defence, 
preparations were made to place in battery all the guns that the 
frigate could bring to bear against the enemy. The provisional, 
cabins that had been fitted up in the battery w^ere demolished, 
the partitions removed, and, with all the elegant furniture of the 
cabins, flung into the sea. The Prince de Joinville was the first 
'to execute himself,' and the frigate soon found itself armed 
with six or eight more guns. 

'' That part of the ship where these cabins had previously 
been, went by the name of Lacedjemon ; everything luxurious 
being banished to make way for what was useful. 

'' Indeed, all persons who were on board agree in saying that 
Monseigneur the Prince de Joinville most worthily acquitted 
himself of the great and honorable mission which had been 
confided to him. All affirm not only that the commandant of 
the expedition did everything at St. Helena which as a French- 
man he was bound to do in order that the remains of the Em- 
peror should receive all the honors due to them, but moreover 
that he accomplished his mission with all the measured solemn- 
ity, all the pious and severe dignity, that the son of the Emperor 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF A'AFOLEON. 



5^7 



himself would have shown upon a like occasion. The comman- 
dant had also comprehended that the remains of the Emperor 
must never fall into the hands of the stranger, and being him- 
self decided rather to sink his ship than to give up his precious 
deposit, he had inspired every one about him with the same 
energetic resolution that he had himself taken ' against aji extremt 
eventuality.' " 

M on seigneur, my dear, is really one of the finest young 
fellows it is possible to see. A tall, broad-chested, slim-waisted, 
brown-faced, dark-eyed young prince, with a great beard (and 
other martial qualities no doubt) beyond his years. As he strode 
into the Chapel of the Invalides on Tuesday at the head of his 
men, he made no small impression, I can tell you, upon the ladies 
assembled to witness the ceremony. Nor are the crew of the 
"Belle Poule" less agreeable to look at than their commander. 
A more clean, smart, active, well-limbed set of lads never " did 
dance" upon the deck of the famed " Belle Poule" i;i the days 
of her memorable combat with the '' Saucy Arethusa." " These 
five hundred sailors," says a French newspaper, speaking of 
them in the proper French way, " sword in hand, in the severe 
costume of board-ship {la severe tenue du bonl), seemed proud 
of the mission that they had just accomplished. Their blue 
jackets, their red cravats, the turned-down collars of blue shirts 
edged with white, above all their resolute appearance and mar- 
tial air. gave a favorable specimen of the present state of our 
marine — a marine of which so much might be expected and 
from which so little has been required." — Le Commerce . i6th 
December. 

There they were, sure enough ; a cutlass upon one hip, a 
pistol on the other — a gallant set of young men indeed. I 
doubt, to be sure, whether \\\q serh-e tenue du Z-.^;?/ requires that 
the seaman should be always furnished with these ferocious 
weapons, which in sundry maritime manoeuvres, such as going 
to sleep in your hammock for instance, or twinkling a binnacle, 
or lufiing a marlinspike, or keelhauling a maintopgallant (all 
naval operations, my dear, which any seafaring novelist will 
explain to you) — I doubt, I say, whether these weapons are 
always worn by sailors, and have heard that they are commonly, 
and very sensibly too, locked up until they are wanted. Take 
another example : suppose artillerymen were incessantly com- 
pelled to walk about with a pyramid of twenty-four-pound shot in 
one pocket, a lighted fuse and a few barrels of gunpowder in 
the other — these objects would, as you may imagine, greatly 
inconvenience the artilleryman in his peaceful state. 



r65 THE SECOND FUNERAL OI^ NAEULEUN. 

The newspsiper writer is therefore most likely mistaken in 
saying that the seamen were in the severe tenue du bord, or by 
'' bord^' m^hx{\wg'' abordage' — which operation they were not, in 
a harmless church, hung round with velvet and wax-candles, and 
filled with ladies, surely called upon to perform. Nor indeed 
can it be reasonably supposed that the picked men of the crack 
frigate of the French navy are a "good specimen "of the rest 
of the French marine, any more than a cuirassed colossus at the 
gate of the Horse Guards can be considered a fair sample of 
the British soldier of the line. The sword and pistol, however, 
had no doubt their effect — the former was in its sheath, the 
latter not loaded, and I hear that the French ladies are quite in 
raptures with these charming loups-de-me?'. 

Let the warlike accoutrements then pass. It was necessary, 
perhaps, to strike the Parisians with awe, and therefore the 
crew was armed in this fierce fashion ; but why should the 
Captain begin to swagger as well as his men ? and why did the 
Prince de Joinville lug out sword and pistol so early ? or why 
if he thought fit to make preparations, should the official jour- 
nals brag of them afterwards as proofs of his extraordinary 
courage ? 

Here is the case. The English Government makes him a 
present of the bones of Napoleon : English workmen work for 
nine hours without ceasing, and dig the coffin out of the ground : 
the English Commissioner hands over the key of the box to the 
French representative. Monsieur Chabot ; English horses carry 
the funeral-car down to the sea-shore, accompanied by the 
English Governor, who has actually left his bed to walk in the 
procession and to do the French nation honor. 

After receiving and acknowledging these politenesses, the 
French captain takes his charge on board, and the first thing we 
afterwards hear of him is the determination '''' qii'll a sufaire 
passer"" mXo all his crew, to sink rather than yield up the body 
of the Emperor aiix 7nams de fetranger — into the hands of the 
foreigner. My dear Monseigneur, is not this par trap fort? 
Suppose " the foreigner " had wanted the coffin, could he not 
have kept it ? Why show this uncalled-for valor, this extraor- 
dinary alacrity at sinking ? Sink or blow yourself up as much 
as you please, but your Royal Highness must see that thf\ 
genteel thing would have been to wait until you were asked to 
do so, before you offended good-natured, honest people, who — • 
heaven help them ! — have never shown themselves at all mur- 
derousfy inclined towards you. A man knocks up his cabins 
forsooth, throws his tables and chairs overboard, runs guns into 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 569 

iho. portholes, and calls le quartier du hord oii existaient ces cham 
bres, LacedcBtnon. Lacedaemon ! There is a province, O Prince, 
in your royal father's dominions, a fruitful parent of heroes in 
its time, which would have given a much better nickname to 
your quartier du hord : you should have called it Gascony. 

" Sooner than strike we'll all ex-pi-er 
On board of the Bell-e Pou-le." 

Such fanfaronnading is very well on the part of Tom Dibden^ 
but a person of your Royal Highness's "pious and severe dig- 
nity " should have been above it. If you entertained an idea 
that war was imminent, would it not have been far better to 
have made your preparations in quiet, and when you found the 
war-rumor blown over, to have said nothing about what you 
intended to do ? Fie upon such cheap Lacedaemonianism ! 
There is no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he 
\vouId have done : however, to do your Royal Highness's nation 
justice, they brag and fight too. 

This narrative, my dear Miss Smith, as you will have re- 
marked, is not a simple tale merely, but is accompanied by 
many moral and pithy remarks which form its chief value, in 
the writer's eyes at least, and the above account of the sham 
Lacedaemon on board the " Belle Poule " has a double-barrelled 
morality, as I conceive. Besides justly reprehending the 
French propensity towards braggadocio, it proves ver}-^ strongly 
a point on which I am the only statesman m Europe who has 
strongly insisted. In the " Paris Sketch Book" it was stated 
that the French hate us. They hate us, my dear, profoundly 
and desperately, and there never was such a hollow humbug 
in the world as the French alliance. Men get a character for 
patriotism in France merely by hating England. Directly they 
go into strong opposition (where, you know, people are always 
more patriotic than on the ministerial side), they appeal to the 
people, and have their hold on the people by hating England 
in common with them. Why ? It is a long story, and the 
hatred may be accounted for by many reasons, both political 
and social. Any time these eight hundred years this ill-will 
has been going on, and has been transmitted on the French 
side from father to son. On the French side, not on ours : we 
have had no, or few, defeats to complain of, no invasions to 
make us angry ; but you see that to discuss such a period of 
time would demand a considerable number of pages, and for 
the present we will avoid the examination of the question. 
But they hate us, that is the long and short of it ; and you 



^yo THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

see how this hatred has e:^loded just now, not upon a serious 
cause of difference, but upon an argument : for what is the 
Pasha of Egypt to us or them but a mere abstract opinion ? 
For the same reason the Little-endians in Lilliput abhorred 
the Big-endians ; and I beg you to remark how his Royal High- 
ness Prince Ferdinand Mary, upon hearing that this argument 
was in the course of debate between us, straight way flung his 
furniture overboard and expressed a preference for sinking his 
ship rather than yielding it to the eiranger. Nothing came of 
this wish of his, to be sure ; but the intention is everything. 
Unlucky circumstances denied hii^i the power, but he had the 
will. 

Well, beyond this disappointment, the Prince de Joinville 
had nothing to complain of during the voyage, which terminated 
happily by the arrival of the " Belle Poule " at Cherbourg, on 
the 30th of November, at five o'clock in the morning. A tele- 
graph made the glad news known at Paris, where the Minister 
of the Interior, Tannegny-Duchatel (you will read the name. 
Madam, in the old Anglo-French wars), had already made 
" immense preparations " for receiving the body of Napoleon. 

The entry was fixed for the 15th of December. 

On the 8th of December at Cherbourg the body was trans- 
ferred from the " Belle Poule " frigate to the " Normandie " 
steamer. On which occasion the mayor of Cherbourg depos- 
ited, in the name of his town, a gold laurel branch upon the 
coffin — which was saluted by the forts and dikes of the place 
with ONE THOUSAND GUNS ! There was a treat for the inhab- 
itants. 

There was on board the steamer a splendid receptacle for 
the coffin : " a temple with twelve pillars and a dome to cover 
it from the wet and moisture, surrounded with velvet hangings 
and silver fringes. At the head was a gold cross, at the foot 
a gold lamp : other lamps were kept constantly burning within, 
and vases of burning incense were hung around. An altar, 
hung with velvet and silver, was at the mizen-mast of the vessel, 
a7tdfoiir silver eagles at each cor tier of the altar T It was a compli 
ment at once to Napoleon and — excuse me for saying so, but 
so the facts are — to Napoleon and to God Almighty. 

Three steamers, the " Normandie," the " Ve'loce," and the 
" Courrier," formed the expedition from Cherbourg to Havre, 
at which place they arrived on the evening of the 9th of De- 
cember, and where the " Vcloce " was replaced by the Seine 
steamer, having in tow one of the state-coasters, which was to fire 
the salute at the moment when the body was transferred into 
one of the vessels belonging to the Seine. 



TflE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 



571 



The expedition passed Havre the same night, and came to 
anchor at Val de la Haye on the Seine, three leagues below 
Rouen. 

Here the next morning (loth), it was met by the flotilla of 
steamboats of the Upper Seine, consisting, of the three 
" Dorades," the three " Etoiles," the '• Elbeuvien," the " Pa- 
risien," the " Parisienne," and the " Zampa," The Prince de 
Joinville, and the persons of the expedition, embarked imme- 
diately in the flotilla, which arrived the same day at Rouen. 

At Rouen salutes were fired, the National Guard on both 
sides of the river paid military honors to the body : and over 
the middle of the suspension-bridge a magnificent cenotaph 
was erected, decorated with flags, fasces, violet hangings, and 
the imperial arms. Before the cenotaph the expedition stopped, 
and the absolution was giv^en by the archbishop and the clergy. 
After a couple of hours' stay, the expedition proceeded to Pont 
de I'Arche. On the nth it reached Vernon, on the 12th 
Mantes, on the 13th Maisons-sur-Seine. 

"Everywhere," says the official account from which the 
above particulars are borrowed, " the authorities, the National 
Guard, and the people flocked to the passage of the flotilla, 
desirous to render the honors due to his glory, which is the 
glory of France. In seeing its hero return, the nation seemed 
to have found its Palladium again, — the sainted relics of vic- 
tory." 

At length, on the 14th, the coffin was transferred from the 
" Dorade " steamer on board the imperial vessel arrived from 
Paris. In the evening, the imperial vessel arrived at Courbe- 
voie, which was the last stage of the journey. 

Here it w^as that M. Guizotwent to examine the vessel, and 
was very nearly flung into the Seine, as report goes, by the 
patriots assembled there. It is now lying on the river, near 
the Invalides, amidst the drifting ice, whither the people of 
Paris are flocking out to see it. 

The vessel is of a very elegant antique form, and I can give 
you on the Thames no better idea of it than by requesting you 
to fancy an immense wherry, of w^hich the stern has been cut 
straight off, and on w^hich a temple on steps has been elevated. 
At the figure-head is an immense gold eagle, and at the stern 
is a little terrace, filled with evergreens and a profusion ot 
banners. Upon pedestals along the sides of the vessel are 
tripods in which incense was burned, and underneath them are 
garlands of flowers called here " immortals." Four eagles 
surround the temple, and a great scroll or garland held in their 



572 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON 

beaks, surrounds it. It i« hung with velvet and gold ; four gold 
caryatides support the entry of it ; and in the midst, upon a 
large platform hung with velvet, and bearing the imperial arms, 
stood the coffin. A steamboat, carrying two hundred musicians 
playing funeral marches and military symphonies, preceded this 
magnificent vessel to Courbevoie, where a funeral temple was 
erected, and " a statue of Notre Dame de Grace, before which 
the seamen of the ' Belle Poule ' inclined themselves, in ordel 
to thank her for having granted them a noble and glorious 
voyage." 

Early on the morning of the 15th December, amidst clouds 
of incense, and thunder of cannon, and innumerable shouts of 
people, the coffin was transferred from the barge, and carried 
by the seamen of the " Belle Poule " to the Imperial Car. 

And now having conducted our hero almost to the gates of 
Paris, I must tell you what preparations were made in the 
capital to receive him. 

- Ten days before the arrival of the body, as you walked across 
the Deputies' Bridge, or over the Esplanade of the Invalides, 
you saw on the bridge eight, on the esplanade thirty-two, mys- 
terious boxes erected, wherein a couple of score of sculptors were 
at work night and day. 

In the middle of the Invalid Avenue, there used to stand, 
on a kind of shabby fountain or pump, a bust of Lafayette, 
crowned with some dirty wreaths of " immortals," and looking 
down at the little streamlet which occasionally dribbled below 
him. The spot of ground was now clear, and Lafayette and 
the pump had been consigned to some cellar, to make way for 
the mighty procession thai was to pass over the place of their 
habitation. 

Strange coincidence ! If I had been M. Victor Hugo, my 
dear, or a poet of any note, I would, in a few hours, have made 
an impromptu concernmg that Lafayette-crowned pump, and 
compared its lot now to the fortune of its patron some fifty 
years back. From him then issued, as from his fountain now, 
a feeble dribble of pure words , then, as now, some faint circle 
of disciples were willing to admire him. Certainly in the midst 
of the war and storm without, this pure fount of eloquence 
went dribbling, dribbling on, till of a sudden the revolutionary 
workmen knocked down statue and fountain, and the gorgeous 
imperial cavalcade trampled over the spot where they stood. 

As for the Champs Elyse'es, there was no end to the prepara- 
tions : the first day you saw a couole of hundred scaffoldings 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 



573 



erected at intervals between the handsome gilded gas-lamps that 
at present ornament that avenue ; next day, all these scaffold- 
ings were filled with brick and mortar. Presentl}^, over the 
bricks and mortar rose pediments of statues, legs of urns, legs 
of goddesses, legs and bodies of goddesses, legs, bodies, and 
busts of goddesses. Finally, on the 13th December, goddesses 
complete. On the 14th, they were painted marble-color : and the 
basements of wood and canvas on which they stood were made 
to resemble the same costly material. The funeral urns were 
ready to receive the frankincense and precious odors which 
were to burn in them. A vast number of white columns 
stretched down the avenue, each bearing a bronze buckler on 
which was written, in gold letters, one of the victories of the 
Emperor, and each decorated with enormous imperial flags. 
On these columns golden eagles were placed ; and the news- 
papers did not fail to remark the ingenious position in which 
the royal birds had been set : for while those'on the right-hand 
side of the way had their heads turned ioivards the procession, 
as if to watch its coming, those on the left were looking exactly 
the other way, as if to regard its progress. Do not fancy I am 
joking : this point was gravely and emphatically urged in many 
newspapers ; and I do believe no mortal Frenchman ever 
thought it anything but sublime. 

Do not interrupt me, sweet Miss Smith. I feel that you are 
angry. I can see from here the pouting of your lips, and know 
what you are going to say. You are going to say, " I will read 
no more of this Mr. Titmarsh ; there is no subject, however 
solemn, but he treats it with flippant irreverence, and no char- 
acter, however great, at whom he does not sneer." 

Ah, my dear ! you are young now and enthusiastic ; and your 
Titmarsh is old, very old, sad, and gray-headed. I have seen 
a poor mother buy a halfpenny wreath at the gate of Mont- 
martre burying-ground, and go with it to her little child's grave, 
and hang it there over the little humble stone ; and if ever you 
saw me scorn the mean offering of the poor shabby creature, I 
will give you leave to be as angry as you will. They say that on 
the passage of Napoleon's coffin down the Seine, old soldiers and 
countr}^ people walked miles from their villages just to catch 
a sight of the boat which carried his body, and to kneel down on 
the shore and pray for him. God forbid that we should quarrel 
with such prayers and sorrow, or question their sincerity. 
Something great and good must have been in this man, some- 
thing loving and kindly, that has kept his name so cherished 
in the popular memory, and gained him such lasting reverence 
and affection. 



574 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEOxY. 



But, Mq,clain, one may inspect the dead without feeling awe* 
stricken at the plumes of the hearse ; and I see no reason why 
one should sympathize with the train of mutes and undertakers, 
however deep may be their mourning. Look, I pray you, at the 
manner in which the French nation has performed Napoleon's 
funeral. Time out of mind, nations have raised, in memory of 
their heroes, august mausoleums, grand pyramids, splendid 
statues of gold or marble, sacrificing whatever they had that was 
most costly and rare, or that was most beautiful in art, as tokens 
of their respect and love for the dead person. What a fine 
example of tliis sort of sacrifice is^tlrat (recorded in a book of 
which Simplicity is the great characteristic) of the poor woman 
who brought her pot of precious ointment — her all, and laid it 
at the feet of the Object which, upon earth, she most loved and 
respected. " Economists and calculators " there were even in 
those days who quarrelled with the manner in which the poor 
woman lavished so much " capital ; " but you will remember how 
nobly and generously the sacrifice was appreciated, and how 
the economists were put to shame. 

With regard to the funeral ceremony that has just been per- 
formed here, it is said that a famous public personage and 
statesman, Monsieur Thiers indeed, spoke with the bitterest 
indignation of the general style of the preparations, and of their 
mean and tawdry character. He would have had a pomp as 
magnificent, he said, as that of Rome at the triumph of Aurelian : 
he would have decorated the bridges and avenues through which 
the procession was to pass, with the costliest marbles- and the 
finest w^orks of art, and have had them to remain there forever 
as monuments of the great funeral. 

The economists and calculators might here interpose with a 
great deal of reason ; for, indeed, there was no reason why a 
nation should impoverish itself to do honor to the memory 
of an individual for whom, after all, it can feel but a qualified 
enthusiasm :, but it surely might have employed the large sum 
voted for the purpose more wisely and generously, and recorded 
its respect for Napoleon by some w'orthy and lasting memorial, 
rather than have erected yonder thousand vain heaps of tinsel, 
paint, and plaster, that are already cracking and crumbling in 
the frost, at three days old. 

Scarcely one of the statues, indeed, deserves to last a 
month : some are odious distortions and caricatures, which never 
should have been allowed to stand for a moment. On the very 
day of the fete, the wind was shaking the canvas pedestals, 
and the flimsy wood-work had begun to gape and give way. 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 



575 



At a little distance, to be sure, you could not see the cracks ; 
and pedestals and statues lookedVik^ marble. At some distance, 
you could not tell but that the wreaths and eagles were gold 
embroidery, and not gilt paper — the great tricolor flags damask, 
and not striped calico. One would think that these sham 
splendors betokened sham respect, if one had not known that the 
name of Napoleon is held in real reverence, and observed some- 
what of the character of the nation. Real feelings they have, but 
they distort them by exaggeration ; real courage, which they 
render ludicrous by intolerable braggadocio ; and I think the 
above official account of the Prince de Joinville's proceedings, 
of the manner in which the Emperor's remains have been treated 
in their voyage to the capital, and of the preparations made to 
receive him in it, will give my dear Miss Smith some means 
of understanding the social and moral condition ©f this worthy 
people of France. 



HI. 
ON THE FUNERAL CEREMONY. 

Shall I tell you, my dear, that when Frangois woke me at 
a very early hour on this eventful morning, while the keen stars 
were still glittering overhead, a half-moon, as sharp as a razor, 
beaming in the frosty sky, and a wicked north wind blowing, 
that blew the blood out of one's fingers and froze your leg as 
you put it out of bed ; — shall I tell you, my dear, that when 
Francois called me, and said, " Via vot' cafe. Monsieur Tite- 
masse, buvez-le, tiens, il est tout chaud," I felt myself, after 
imbibing the hot breakfast, so comfortable under three blankets 
and a mackintosh, that for at least quarter of an hour no man 
in Europe could say whether Titmarsh would or would not be 
present at the burial of the Emperor Napoleon. 

Besides, my dear, the cold, there was another reason for 
doubting. Did the French nation, or did they not, intend to 
offer up some of us English over the imperial grave ? And 
were the games to be concluded by a massacre ? It was said 
in the newspapers that Lord Granville had despatched circulars 
to all the English resident in Paris, begging them to keep their 
homes. The French journals announced this news, and warned 



5^6 THE SECOxVD FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

US charitably of the fate intended for us. Had Lord Granville 
written ? Certainly not to me. Or had he written to all except 
me? And was I the victim — the doomed one .^ — to be seized 
directly I showed my face in the Champs Elysees, and torn in 
pieces by French Patriotism to the frantic chorus of the 
'' Marseillaise ? " Depend on it, Madam, that high and low in 
this city on Tuesday were not altogether at their ease, and that 
the bravest felt no small tremor ! And be sure of this, that as 
his Majesty Louis Philippe took his nightcap off his royal head 
that morning, he prayed heartily that he mi^ht, at night, put it 
on in safety. 

Well, as my companion and I came out of doors, being 
bound for the Church of the Invalides, for which a Deputy had 
kindly furnished us with tickets, we saw the very prettiest sight 
of the whole day, and I can't refrain from mentioning it to my 
dear, tender-hearted Miss Smith. 

In the same house where I live (but about five stories nearer 
the ground), lodges an English family, consisting of — i. A 
great-grandmother, a hale, handsome old lady of seventy, the 
very best-dressed and neatest old lady in Paris. 2. A grand- 
father and grandmother, tolerably young to bear that title. 3. 
A daughter. And 4. Two little great-grand, or grand-children, 
that may be of the age of three and one, and belong to a son 
and daughter who are in India. The grandfather, who is as 
proud of his wife as he was thirty years ago when he married, 
and pays her compliments still twice or thrice in a day, and 
when he leads her into a room looks round at the persons as- 
sembled, and says in his heart, " Here, gentlemen, here is 
my wife — show me such another woman in England," — this 
gentleman had hired a room on the Champs Elysees, for he 
would not have his wife catch cold by exposing her to the 
balconies in the open air. 

When I came to the street, I found the family assembled in 
the following order of march : — 

No. I, the great-grandmother walking daintily along, supported by No. 3, 

her granddaughter. 

• A nurse carrying No. 4 junior, who was sound asleep, and a huge basket 

containing saucepans, bottles of milk, parcels of infants' food, certain 
dimity napkms, a child's coral, and a little horse belonging to No 4 
senior. 

A servant bearing a basket of condiments. 

No. 2, grandfatlier, spick and span, clean shaved, hat brushed, white buck- 

skin gloves, bamboo cane, brown great-coat, walking as upright and 
solemnas may be, having his lady on his arm. 

■ No. 4, senior, with mottled legs and a tartan costume, who was frisking 

about between his grandpapa's legs, who heartily wished him at home. 



THE SECOIVD FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 



577 



" My dear," his face seemed to say to his lady, " I think 
you might have left the little things in the nursery, for we 
shall have to squeeze through a terrible crowd in the Champs 
Elysees." 

The lady was going out for a day's pleasure, and her face 
was full of care : she had to look first after her old mother 
who was walking ahead, then after No. 4 junior with the nurse 
— he might fall into all sorts of danger, wake up, cry, catch 
cold ; nurse might slip down, or heaven knows what. Then 
she had to look her husband in the face, who had gone to such 
expense and been so kind for her sake, and make that gentle- 
man believe she was thoroughly happy ; and, finally, she had 
to keep an eye upon No. 4 senior, who, as she was perfectly 
certain, was about in two minutes to be lost forever, or trampled 
to pieces in the crowd. 

These events took place in a quiet little street leading into 
the Champs Elyse'es, the entry of which we had almost reached 
by this time. The four detachments above described, which 
had been straggling a little in their passage down the street, 
closed up at the end of it, and stood for a moment huddled to- 
gether. No. 3, Miss X — , began speaking to her companion tJie 
great-grandmother. 

" Hush, my dear," said that old lady, looking round alarmed 
at her daughter. " Speak French.^^ And she straightway be- 
gan nervously to make a speech which she supposed to be in 
that language, but which was as much like French as Iroquois, 
The whole secret was out : you could read it in the grand- 
mother's face, who was doing all she could to keep from cry- 
ing, and looked as frightened as she dared to look. The two 
elder ladies had settled between them that there was going to 
be a general English slaughter that day, and had brought the 
children with them, so that they might all be murdered in 
company. 

God bless you, O women, moist-eyed and tender-hearted ! 
In those gentle silly tears of yours there is something touches 
one, be they never so foolish. I don't think there were many 
such natural drops shed that day as those which just made 
their appearance in the grandmother's eyes, and then went back 
again as if they had been ashamed of themselves, while the 
good lady and her little troop walked across the road. Think 
how happy she will be when night comes, and there has been 
no murder of English, and the brood is all nestled under her 
wings sound asleep, and she is lying awake thanking God that 
the day and its pleasures and pains are over. Whilst we were 

37 



^ng THE SECOND FUNERAL OF AAPOLEON. 

considering these things, the grandfather had suddenly elevated 
No. 4 senior upon his left shoulder, and I saw the tartan hat 
of that young gentleman, and the bamboo-cane which had 
been transferred to him, high over the heads of the crowd on 
the opposite side through which the party moved. 

After this little.procession had passed away — you may laugh 
at it, but upon my word and conscience. Miss Smith, I saw 
nothing in the course of the day which affected me more — after 
this little procession had passed away the other came, accom- 
panied by gun-banging, flag-waving, incense-burning, trumpets 
pealing, drums rolling, and at the close, received by the voice 
of six hundred choristers, sweetly modulated to the tones of 
fifteen score of fiddlers. Then you saw horse and foot, jack- 
boots and bearskin, cuirass and bayonet, national guard and 
line, marshals and generals all over gold, smart aids-de-camp 
galloping about like mad, and high in the midst of all, riding 
on his golden buckler, Solomon in all his glory, forsooth — Im- 
perial Caesar, with his crown over his head, laurels and stand- 
ards waving about his gorgeous chariot, and a million of 
people looking on in wonder and awe. 

His Majesty the Emperor and King reclined on his shield, 
with his head a little elevated. His Majesty's skull is volumi- 
nous, his forehead broad and large. We remarked that his Im- 
perial Majesty's brow was of a yellowish color, which appear- 
ance was also visible about the orbits of the eyes. He kept 
his eyelids constantly closed, by which we had the opportunity 
of observing that the upper lids were garnished with eye- 
lashes. Years and climate have effected upon the face of this 
great monarch only a trifling alteration ; we may say, indeed, 
that Time has touched his Imperial and Royal Majesty with 
the lightest feather in his wing. In the nose of the Conqueror 
of Austerlitz we remarked very little alteration : it is of the 
beautiful shape which we remember it possessed iive-and- 
twenty years since, ere unfortunate circumstances induced him 
to leave us for a while. The nostril and the tube of the nose 
appear to have undergone some slight alteration, but in ex- 
amining a beloved object the eye of affection is perhaps too 
critical. Vive V Eijipereiir ! The soldier of Marengo is among 
us again. His lips are thinner, perhaps, than they were be- 
fore I how white his teeth are ! you can just see three of them 
pressing his under lip ; and pray remark the fullness of his 
cheeks and the round contour of his chin. Oh, those beau- 
tiful white hands ! many a time have they patted the cheek of 
poor Josephine, and played with the black ringlets of her hair. 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 



579 



She is dead now, and cold, poor creature ; and so are Hor- 
tense and bold Eugene, " than whom the world never saw a 
curtier knight," as was said of King Arthur's Sir Lancelot. 
What a day would it have been for those three could they but 
ha/e lived until now, and seen their hero returning ! Where's 
Ney ? His wife sits looking out from M. Flahaut's window yon- 
der, but the bravest of the brave is not with her. Murattoois 
absent : honest Joachim loves the Emperor at heart, and 
repents that he was not at Waterloo : who knows but that at 
the sight of the handsome swordsman those stubborn English 
" canaille " would have given way ? A king, Sire, is, you know, 
the greatest of slaves — State affairs of consequence — his Maj- 
esty the King of Naples is detained, no doubt. When we 
last saw the King, however, and his Highness the Prince of 
Elchingen, they looked to have as good health as ever they 
had in their lives, and we heard each of them calmly calling 
out '"''Fire! " as they had done in numberless battles before. 

Is it possible ? can the Emperor forget ? We don't like to 
break it to him, but has he forgotten all about the farm at 
Pizzo, and the garden of the Observatory ? Yes, truly : there 
he lies on his golden shield, never stirring, never so much as 
lifting his eyelids, or opening his lips any wider. 

O vafiitas vcviitatuvi ! Here is our sovereign in all his 
glory, and they fired a thousand guns at Cherbourg and nevei 
woke him ! 

However, we are advancing matters by several hours, and 
you must give just as much credence as you please to the sub- 
joined remarks concerning the Procession, seeing that your 
humble servant could not possibly be present at it, being bound 
for the church elsewhere. 

Programmes, however, have been published of the affair, 
and your vivid fancy will not fail to give life to them, and the 
whole magnificent train will pass before you. 

Fancy then, that the guns are fired at Neuilly : the body 
landed at daybreak from the funereal barge, and transferred to 
the car ; and fancy the car, a huge Juggernaut of a machine, 
rolling on four wheels of an antique shape, which supported a 
basement adorned with golden eagles, banners, laurels, and 
velvet hangings. Above the hangings stand twelve golden 
statues with raised arms supporting a huge shield, on which 
the coffin lay. On the coffin was the imperial crown, covered 
with violet velvet crape, and the whole vast machine was drawn 
by horses in superb housings, led by valets in the imperial livery. 



£8o THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

Fancy, at the -head of t^e procession first of all — 

The Gendarmerie of the Seine, with their trumpets and Colonel. 

The Municipal Guard (horse) with their trumpets, standard, and Colonel. 

Two squadrons of the 7th Lancers, with Colonel, standard, and music. 

The Commandant of Paris and his Staff. 

A battalion of Infantry of the Line, with their flag, sappers, drums, music, 
and Colonel. 

The Municipal Guard (foot), with flag, drums, and Colonel. 

The Sapper-pumpers, with ditto. 

Then picture to yourself more squadrons of Lancers and Cuirassiers. The 
General of the Division and his Staff; all officers of all arms employed at 
Paris, and unattached ; the Military School of Saint Cyr, the Polytechnic 
School, the School of the Etat-Major; and the Professors and Staff of 
each. Go on imagining more bjittalions of Infantry, of Artillery, com- 
panies of Engineers, squadrons of Cuirassiers, ditto of the Cavalry, of the 
National Guard, and the first and second legions of ditto. 

Fancy a carriage, containing the Chaj^lain of the St. Helena expedition, the 
only clerical gentleman that formed a part of the procession. 

Fancy you hear the funeral music, and then figure in your mind's eye — 

The Emperor's Charger, that is, Napoleon's own saddle and bridle 
(when First Consul) upon a white horse. The saddle (which has been 
kept ever since in the Garde Meuble of the Crown) is of amaranth velvet, 
embroidered in gold : the holsters and housings are of the same rich 
material. On them you remark the attributes of War, Commerce, Science 
and Art. The bits and stirrups are silver-gilt chased. Over the stirrups, 
two eagles were placed at the time of the empire. The horse was covered 
with a violet crape embroidered with golden bees. 

After this came more Soldiers, General Officers, Sub-Officers, Marshals, 
and what was said to be the prettiest sight almost of the whole, the ban- 
ners of the eightj'-six Departments of France. These are due to the 
invention of M. Thiers, and were to have been accompanied by federates 
from each Department. But the Government very wisely mistrusted this 
and some other projects of Monsieur Thiers; and as for a federation, my 
dear, it has been t7-ied. Next comes — 

His Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville. 

The 500 sailors of the " Belle Poule " marching in double file on each 
side of 

THE CAR. 

[Hush ! the enormous crowd thrills as it passes, and only some few voices 

cry Vive P Empcreiir ! Shining golden in the frosty sun — with hundreds 

of thousands of eyes upon it, from houses and housetops, from balconies, 

black, purple, and tricolor, from tops of leafless trees, from behind long lines 
of glittering bayonets under schakos and bearskin caps, from behind the 
Line and tlie National Guard again, pushing, strugghng, heav- 
•'ng, panting, eager, the heads of an enormous multitude 
stretching out to meet and follow it, amidst long avenues 
of columns, and statues gleaming white, of stand- 
ards rainbow-colored, of golden eagles, of pale 
funeral urns, of discharging odors amidst 

huge volumes of pitch-black smoke, 
THE GREAT 1MPERL\L CHARIOT 

ROLLS MAJESTICALLY ON. 

The cords of the pall are held by tv/o Marshals, an Admiral and General 

Bertrand ; who are followed by — 
Tlie Prefects of the Seine and Police, &c. 
The Mayors of Paris, &c. 
The Members of the Old Guard, &c. 
A Squadron of Ligh.t Dragoons, &c. 
Lieutenant-General Schneider, &c. 



THE SECOXD FLWERAL OF XAFOLEON. 58 1 

More cavalr -, more infantry, more artillery, more everybody ; and as tha 
procession passes, the Line and the National Guard forming line on each 
side of the road fall in and follow it, until it arrives at the Church of the 
Invalides, where the last lionors are to be paid to it.] 

Among the company assembled under the dome of that 
edifice, the casual observer would not perhaps have remarked 
a geatleman of the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh, who 
nevertheless M^as there. But as, my dear Miss Smith, the 
decjcriptions in this letter, from the words in page 578, line 15 
— the party moved — up to the words paid to it, on this page, 
have purely emanated from your obedient servant's fancy, and 
not from his personal observation (for no being on earth, except 
a newspaper reporter, can be in two places at once), permit m« 
now to communicate to you what little circumstances fell unde/ 
my own particular view on the day of the 15th of December. 

As we came out, the air and the buildings round about were 
tinged with purple, and the clear sharp half-moon before-men- 
tioned was still in the sky, where it seemed to be lingering as 
if it would catch a peep of the commencement of the famous 
procession. The Arc de Triomphe was shining in a keen frosty 
sunshine, and looking as clean and rosy as if it had just made 
its toilette. The canvas or pasteboard image of Napoleon, of 
which only the gilded legs had been erected the night previous, 
was now visible, body, head, crown^ sceptre and all, and made 
an imposing show. Long gilt banners were flaunting about, 
the imperial cipher and eagle, and the names of the battles and 
victories glittering in gold. The long avenues of the Champs 
Elysees had been covered with sand for the convenience of the 
great procession that was to tramp across it that day. Hun- 
dreds of people were marching to and fro, laughing, chattering, 
singing, gesticulating as happy Frenchmen do. There is no 
pleasanter sight than a French crowd on the alert for a festival, 
and nothing more catching than their good-humor. As for the 
notion which has been put forward by some of the opposition 
newspapers that the populace were on this occasion unusually 
solemn or sentimental, it would be paying a bad compliment to 
the natural gayety of the nation, to say that it was, on the morn- 
ing at least of the 15th of December, affected in any such 
absurd way. Itinerant merchants were shouting out lustily 
their commodities of segars and brandy, and the weather was 
so bitter cold, that they could not fail to find plenty of cus- 
tomers. Carpenters and workmen were still making a huge 
banging and clattering among the sheds which were built for 
the accommodation of the visitors. Some of these sheds were 



^82 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. 

hung with black, such as one sees before churches in funerals ; 
some were robed in violet, in compliment to the Emperor whose 
mourning they put on. Most of them had fine tricolor hang^ 
ings with appropriate inscriptions to the glory of the French 
arms. 

All along the Champs Elyse'es were urns of plaster-of-Paris 
destined to contain funeral incense and flames ; columns decor- 
ated with huge flags of blue, red, and white, embroidered with 
shining crowns, eagles, and N's in gilt paper, and statues of 
plaster representing Nymphs, Triumphs, Victories, or other 
female personages, painted in oil so as to represent marble. 
Real marble could have had no better effect, and the appear- 
ance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme. 
On each pillar was a buckler of the color of bronze, bearing the 
name and date of a battle in gilt letters ; you had to walk 
through a mile-long avenue of these gloriou's reminiscences, 
telling of spots where, in the great imperial days, throats had 
been victoriously cut. 

As we passed down the avenue, several troops of soldiers 
met us • the garde-viiinidpale a cJieval, in brass helmets and 
shining jack-boots, noble-looking men, large, on large horses, 
the pick of the old army, as I have heard, and armed for the 
special occupation of peace-keeping : not the most glorious, 
but the best part of the soldier's duty, as I fancy. Then came 
a regiment of Carabineers, one of Infantry — little, alert, brown- 
faced, good-humored men, their band at their head playing 
sounding marches. These were followed by a regiment or 
detachment of the Municipals on foot — two or three inches 
taller than the men of the Line, and conspicuous for their neat- 
ness and discipline. By and by came a squadron or so of dra- 
goons of the National Guards : they are covered with straps, 
buckles, aiguillettes, and cartouche-boxes, and made under 
their tricolor cock's-plumes a show sufficiently warlike. The 
point which chieliy struck me on beholding these military men 
of the National Guard and the Line, was the admirable man- 
ner in which they bore a cold that seemed to me as sharp as 
the weather in the Russian retreat, through which cold the 
troops were trotting without trembling and in the utmost 
cheerfulness and good-humor. An aide-de-camp galloped past 
in white pantaloons. By heavens ! it made me shudder to 
look at him. 

With this profound reflection, we turned away to the right 
towards the hanging-bridge (where we met a detachment of 
young men of the Ecole de I'Etat Major, fine-looking lads, but 



THE SECOND FUXEKAL OE XAFOLEO.V. 583 

sadly disfigured by the wearing of stays or belts, that make the 
waists of the French dandies of a most absurd tenuity), and 
speedily passed into the avenue of statues leading up to the 
Invalides. All these were statues of warriors from Ney to 
Charlemagne, modelled in clay for the nonce, and placed here 
to meet the corpse of the greatest warrior of all. Passing 
these, we had to walk to a little door at the back of the In- 
valides, where was a crowd of persons plunged in the deepest 
mourning, and pushing for places in the chapel within. 

The chapel is spacious and of no great architectural preten- 
sions, but w^as on this occasion gorgeously decorated in honor 
of the great person to whose body it was about to give shelter. 

We had arrived at nine : the ceremony was not to begin, 
they said, till two : we had five hours before us to see all that 
from our places could be seen. 

We saw that the roof, up to the fa-st lines of architecture, 
was hung with violet ; beyond this with black. We saw N's, 
eagles, bees, laurel wa-eaths, and other such imperial emblems, 
adorning every nook and corner of the edifice. Between the 
arches, on each side of the aisle, were painted trophies, on 
which were written the names of some of Napoleon's Generals 
and of their principal deeds of arms — and not their deeds of 
arms alone, pardi, but their coats of arms too. O stars and 
garters ! but this is too much. What was Ney s paternal coat, 
prithee, or honest Junot's quarterings, or the venerable escut- 
cheon of King Joachim's father, the innkeeper? 

You and I, dear Miss Smith, know the exact value of 
heraldic bearings. W^e know^ that though the greatest pleasure 
of all is to act like a gentleman, it is a pleasure, nay a merit, to 
be one — to come of an old stock, to have an honorable pedi- 
gree, to be able to say that centuries back our fathers had 
gentle blood, and to us transmitted the same. There is a good 
in gentility : the man wdio questions it is envious, or a coarse 
dullard not able to perceive the difference between high breed- 
ing and low. One has in the same w'ay heard a man brag that 
he did not know the difference between wines, not he — give him 
a good glass of port and he would pitch all your claret to the 
deuce. My love, men often brag about their own dulness in 
this way. 

In the matter of gentlemen, democrats cry, " Psha ! Give 
us one of Nature's gentlemen, and hang your aristocrats." And 
so indeed Nature does make some gentlemen — a few here and 
there. But Art makes most. Good birth, that, is, good hand- 
some well-formed fathers and mothers, nice cleanly nursery- 



584 



THE SECOND EUNERAL OE NAPOLEON. 



maids, gogd meals, good iJ^iysicians, good education, few cares, 
pleasant easy hjibits of life, and luxuries not too great or 
enervating, but only refining — a course of these going on for a 
few generations are the best gentleman-makers in the world, 
and beat Nature hollow. 

If, respected Madam, you say that there is something better 
than gentility in this wicked world, and that honesty and per- 
sonal "worth are more \aluable than all the politeness and high- 
breeding that ever wore red-heeled pumps, knights' spurs, or 
Hoby's "boots, Titmarsh for one is never going to say you nay. 
If you even go so far as to say that the very, existence of this 
super-genteel society among us, from the slavish respect that 
we pay to it, from the dastardly manner in which we attempt to 
imitate its airs and ape its vices, goes far to destroy honesty of 
intercourse, to make us meanly ashamed of our natural affec- 
tions and honest, harmless usages, and so does a great deal 
more harm than it is possible it can do good by its example — 
perhaps, Madam, you speak with some sort of reason. Potato 
myself. I can't help seeing that the tulip yonder has the best 
place in the garden, and the most sunshine, and the most 
water, and the best tending — and not liking him over well. 
But I can't help acknowledging hat Nature has given him a 
much finer dress than ever I can hope to have, and of this, at 
least, must give him the benefit. 

Or say, we are so many cocks and hens, my dear {saiis 
arrlerepensee), with our crops pretty full, our plumes pretty sleek, 
decent picking here and there in the straw-yard, and tolerable 
snug roosting in the barn : yonder on the terrace, in the sun, 
walks Peacock, stretching his proud neck, squealing every now 
and then in the most pert fashionable voice and flaunting his 
great supercilious dandified tail. Don't let us be too angry, 
my dear, with the useless, haughty, insolent creature, because 
he despises us. So7?iet/ii?ig\s there about Peacock that we don't 
possess. Strain your neck ever so, you can't make it as long 
or as blue as his — cock your tail as much as you please, and it 
will never be half so fine to look at. But the most absurd, 
disgusting contemptible sight in the world would you and I be, 
leaving the barn-door for my lady's flower-garden, forsaking 
our natural sturdy walk for the peacock's genteel rickety stride, 
and adopting the^ squeak of his voice in the place of our gallant 
lusty cock-a-doodledooing. 

Do you take the allegory ^ I love to speak in such, and the 
above types have been presented to my mind while sitting 
opposite a gimcrack coat-of-arms and coronet that are painted 



THE SECOXD irXJ:i<AL OF \AFOLr.uX. 585 

in tlie Invaliues (/hurcli, and assL^n6d lu oiic of the Eiapcior s 
Generals. 

VcntrebUu! .Madam, wliat need have Ihiy of coats-otarms 
and coronets, and wretched imitations of old exploded aristo- 
cratic gewj^aws \.\\\\l they, had flunc;; out of t!ic country — with the 
heads of the owners i!i "them sometimes, for indeed they were 
not particular — a score- of years before ? What business, for- 
sooth, had tlicy to be meddling with gentility and aping its 
wavs. who had courage, merit, daring, genius sometimes, and a 
pride of their own to support, if proud they were inclined to be ? 
A clever xoiing man (who was not of high family himself, but 
had been bred up genteely at Eton and the university; — young 
-\[r. George Canning, at the commencement of the French 
Revolution, sneered at "' Roland the Just, with ribbons in his 
shoes.'" and the dandies, who then wove buckles, voted the 
sarcasm monstrous killing. It was a joke, my dear, worthy of 
a lackey, or of a silly smart parvenu, not knowing the society 
into which his luck had cast him (God help him ! in later years, 
they taught him what they were !), and fancying in his silly 
intoxication that simplicity w-as ludicrous and fashion respect- 
able. See, now, fifty years are gone, and where are shoebuckles ? 
Extinct, defunct, kicked into the irrevocable past off the toes 
of all Europe ! 

How fatal to the parvenu, throughout history, has been this 
respect for shoebuckles. Where, for instance, would the Empire 
of Napoleon have been, if Ney and Lannes had never sported 
such a thing as a coat-of-arms, and had only written their simple 
names on their shields, after the fashion of Desaix's scutcheon 
yonder 'i — the bold Republican who led the crowning charge at 
Marengo, and sent the best blood of the Holy Roman Empire to 
the right-about, before the wretched misbegotten imperial 
heraldry was born, that was to prove so disastrous to the father 
of it. It has always been so. They won't amalgamate. A 
country must be governed by the one principle or the other. 
But give, in a republic, an aristocracy ever so little chance, and 
it works and plots and sneaks and bullies and sneers itself into 
place, and you find democracy out of doors. Is it good that the 
aristocracy should so trium.ph ? — that is a question that you may 
settle according to your own notions and taste ; and permit me 
to say, I do not care twopence how you settle it. Large books 
have been written upon the subject in a variety of languages, and 
coming to a varletv of conclusions. Great statesmen are there 
in our'country, from Lord Londonderry down to Mr. Vincent, 
e-A-ch in his degree maintaining his different opinion. But here. 



1^86 '^'^t: SECOND FUNERAL OE NAEOLEON. 

in the niaaer ofNapoleoif, is a simple fact ; he tuunded a great, 
j^lorioiis, strong, potent republic, able to cope with the best 
aristocracies in the world, and perhaps to beat them all ; he 
converts Ins republic into a monarchy, and surrounds his 
monarchy with what he calls aristocratic institutions; and you 
know what becomes of him. The people estranged, the aristo- 
cracy faithless (when did they ever pardon one wdio was not 
themselves?) — the'imperial fabric tumbles to the ground. If it 
teaches nothing else, my dear, it teaches one a great point of 
policy — nan-tel)-, to stick by one's party. 

While these thoughts (and sundry others relative to the hor- 
rible cold of the place, the intense dullness of delay, the stupidity 
of leaving a warm bed and a breakfast in order to witness a 
procession that is much better performed at a theatre) — while 
these thoughts were passing in the mind, the church began to 
fill apace, and vou saw that the hour of the ceremony was 
drawing near. 

Lnpfimis. came men with lighted staves, and set fire to at 
least ten thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant 
chandeliers in various parts of the chapel. Curtains were 
dropped over the upper windows as these illuminations were 
effected, and the church was left only to the funereal light of the 
spermaceti. To the right was the dome, round the cavity of 
which sparkling lamps were set, that designed the shape of it 
brilliantly against the darkness. In the midst, and where the 
altar used to stand, rose the ca:a^alque. And why not ? Who is 
God here but Napoleon ? and in him the skeptics have already 
ceased to believe ; but the people does still somewhat. He 
and Louis XIV. divide the worship of the place between thera. 

As for the catafalque, the best that I can say for it is that it 
is really a noble and imposing-looking edifice, with tall pillars 
supporting a grand dome, with innumerable escutcheons, stand- 
ards, and allusions military and funereal. A great eagle of 
course tops the whole : tripods burning spirits of wine stand 
round this kind of dead man's throne, and as we saw it (by peer- 
ing over the heads of our neighbors in the front rank), it 
looked, in the midst of the black concave, and under the effect 
of half-a-thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and tall. 
The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon 
of the painting-room), was spoiled by being cut up : there were 
too many objects for the e3'e to rest upon : the ten thousand 
wax candles, for instance, in their numberless twinkling chan- 
deliers, the raw iranchant colors of iJie new banners, wreaths, 
bees, N's, and other emblems dotting the place all over, and 
incessantly puzzling, or rather bothering the beholder. 



THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON 587 

High overhead, in a sort of mist, with the glare of theii 
original colors worn down by dust and time, hung long rows of 
dim ghostly-looking standards, captured in old days from the 
enemy. They were, I thought, the best and most solemn part 
of the show. 

To suppose that the people w^ere bound to be solemn during 
the ceremony is to exact from them something quite neediest 
and unnatural. The very fact of a squeeze dissipates all 
solemnitv. One great crowd is always, as I imagine, pretty 
much like another. In the course of the last few years 1 have 
seen three ; that attending the coronation of our present sov- 
ereign, that which went to see Courvoisier hanged, and this 
which 'witnessed the Napoleon ceremony. The people so 
assembled for hours together are jocular rather than solemn, 
seeking to pass away the weary time with the best amuse- 
ments that will offer. There was, to be sure, in all the scenes 
above alluded to, just one moment — one particular moment— 
when the universal people feels a shock and is for that second 
serious. 

But except for that second of time, I declare I saw no 
seriousness here beyond that of ennui. The church began to 
fill with personages of all ranks and conditions. First opposite 
our seats came a company of fat grenadiers of the National 
Guard, who presently, at the word of command, put their 
muskets down against benches and wainscots, until the arrival 
of the procession. For seven hours these men formed the 
object of the most anxious solicitude of all the ladies and 
gentlemen seated on our benches : they began stamp their feet, 
for the cold was atrocious, and we w^ere frozen where we sat. 
Some of them fell to blowing their fingers ; one executed a 
kind of dance, such as one sees often here in cold weather — 
the individual jumps repeatedly upon one leg, and kicks out 
the other violently, meanwhile his hands are flapping across his 
chest. Some fellows opened their cartouche-boxes, and from 
them drew eatables of various kinds. You can't think how 
anxious we w^ere to know^ the qualities of the same. "Tiens, 
ce gros qui mange une cuisse de volaille ! " — " II a du Jambon, 
celui-la." " I should like some, too,'^ growls an Englishman, 
*'for I hadn't a morsel of breakfast," and so on. This is the 
way, my dear, that vv^e see Napoleon buried. 

Did you ever see a chicken escape from clown in a pan- 
tomime, and hop over into the pit, or amongst the fiddlers ? and 
have you not seen the shrieks of enthusiastic laughter that the 
wondrous incident occasions ? We had our chicken, of course i 



588 THE S£CO.VJJ FUNEI^AI. UE \AFOLEOA\ 

there never was a public cro^d withuut one. A poor unhappy 
woman in a greasy plaid cloak, with a battered rose-colored 
plush bonnet, was seen taking her place among the stalls allotted 
to the grandees. " Voyez done I'Anglaise," said everybody, 
and it was too true. You could swear that the wretch Avas an 
Englishwoman : a bonnet was never made or worn so in any 
other country. Half an hour's delightful amusement did this 
lacly give us all. She was whisked from seat to seat by tlie 
huissiers, and at every change of place woke a peal of laughter. 
I was glad, however, at the end of the day to see the old pink 
bonnet over a very comfortable seat, which somebody had not 
claim.ed and she had kept. 

Are not these remarkable incidents .? The next wonder we 
saw was the arrival of a set of tottering old Invalids, who took 
their places under us with drawn sabres. Then came a superb 
drum-major, a handsome smiling good-humored giant of a 
man, his breeches astonishingly embroidered with silver lace. 
Hini a dozen Httle drummer-boys followed — " the litde dar- 
lings ! "all the ladies cried out in a breath : they were indeed 
pretty little fellows, and came and stood close under us : the 
huge drum-major smiled Qver his little red-capped iiock, and 
for many hours in the most perfect contentment twiddled his 
mustaches and played with the tassels of his cane. 

Now the company began to arrive thicker and thicker. A 
whole covey of Conseillers d' Etaf c-<m\Q in, in blue coats, em- 
broidered with blue silk, then came a crowd of lawyers in 
toques and caps, among whom were sundry venerable Judges 
in scarlet, purple velvet, and ermine — a kind of Bajazet cos- 
tume. Look there ! there is the Turkish Ambassador in his 
'■ed cap, turning his solemn brown face about and looking 
preternaturally wise. The Deputies walk in in a body. Guizot 
is not there : he passed by just now in full ministerial costume. 
Presently little Thiers saunters back: what a clear, broad, 
sharp-eyed face the fellow has, with his gray hair cut down so 
demure ! A servant passes, pushing through the crowd a 
shabby wheel-chair. It has just brought old Moncey the Gov- 
ernor of the Invalids, the honest old man who defended Paris 
so stoutly in 18 14. He has been very ill, and is worn down 
almost by infirmities : but in his illness he was perpetually ask- 
ing, " Doctor, shall I live till the 15th ? Give me till then, and 
I die contented." One can't help believing that the old man's 
wish is honest, however one may doubt the piety of another 
illustrious Marshal, who once carried a candle before Charles 
X. in a procession, and has been this morning to Neuilly to 



THE SECGXD FUNERAL OF XAPOLEON: 589 

kneel and pray at the foot of Napoleon's coftin. He might 
have said his j3rayers at home, to be sure ; but don't let us ask 
too much : that kind of reserve is not a Frenchman's charac- 
teristic. 

Bang — bang ! At about half-past two a dull sound of can- 
nonading was heard without the church, and signals took place 
between the Connnandant of the Invalids, of the National 
Guards, and the big drum-major. Looking to these troops 
{the fat Nationals were shuffling into line again) the two Com- 
/nandants uttered, as nearly as I could catch them, the follow- 
ing words — 

" Harru-M Hump ! " 

At once all the National bayonets were on the present, and 
the sabres of the old Invalids up. The big drum-major looked 
round at the children, who began very slowly and solemnly on 
their drums. Rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub — (count two between 
each) — rub-dub-dub. and a great procession of priests came 
down from the altar. 

First, there was a tall handsome cross-bearer, bearing a long 
gold cross, of which the front was turned towards his grace 
the Archbishop. Then came a double row of about sixteen 
incense-boys, dressed in white surplices : the first boy, about 
six years old, the last with whiskers and of the height of a man. 
Then followed a regiment of priests in black tippets and white 
gowns : they had black hoods, like the moon when she is at her 
third quarter, wherewith those who wei;e bald (many were, and 
fat too) covered themselves. All the reverend men held their 
heads meekly down,,^and affected to be reading in their bre- 
viaries. 

After the Priests came some Bishops of the neighboring dis- 
tricts, in purple, with crosses sparkling on their episcopal 
bosoms. 

Then came, after more priests, a set of men whom I have 
never seen before — a kind of ghostly heralds, young and hand- 
some men, some of them in stiff tabards of black and silver, 
their eyes to the ground, their hands placed at right angles with 
their chests. 

Then came two gentlemen bearing remarkable tall candle- 
sticks, with candies of corresponding size. One was burning 
brightly, but the wind (that chartered libertine) had blown out 
the other, which nevertheless kept its place in the procession — 
I wondered to myself whether the reverend gentleman who car- 
ried the extinguished candle, felt disgusted, humiliated, mor- 
tified — perfectly conscious that the eyes of many thousands of 



t^go TH^ SECOND FLWEKAL OF XAPOLEON 

people were bent upon that Dit of refnictory wax. We all ot 
us looked at it with intense interest. 

Another cross-bearer, behind whom came a gentleman carry- 
ing an instrument like a bedroom candlestick. 

His Grandeur Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris : he 
was in black and white, his eyes were cast to the earth, his 
hands were together at right angles from his chest ; on his 
hands were black gloves, and on the black gloves sparkled the 
sacred episcopal — what do I say .'' — archiepiscopal ring. On 
his head was the mitre. It is unlike the godly coronet that 
figures upon the coachpanels of our own Right Reverend Bench, 
The Archbishop's mitre may be about a yard high : formed 
within probably of consecrated pasteboard, it is without covered 
by a sort of watered silk of white and silver. On the two peaks 
at the top of the mitre are two very little spangled tassels, that 
frisk and twinkle about in a v.ery agreeable manner. 

Monseigneur stood opposite to us for some time, when I had 
the opportunity to note the above remarkable phenomena. He 
stood opposite me for some time, keeping his eyes steadily on 
the ground, his hands before him, a small clerical train follow- 
ing after. Why didn't they move ? There was the National 
Guard keeping on presenting arms, the little drummers going 
on rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub— in the same steady, slow way, 
and the Procession never moved an inch. There was evidently, 
to use an elegant phrase, a hitch somewhere. 

\Entcr a fat priest^ who bustles up to the drum-7jta;'o^.'\ 

Fat priest — " Taisez-vous." 

Liitle drumfner — Rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub — rub-dub- 
dub, &c. 

Drum-major — " Qu'est-ce done ? " 

Fat priest — " Taisez-vous, vous dis-je ; ce n'est pas le corps. 
II n'arrivera pas — pour une heure." 

The little drums were instantly hushed, the procession 
turned to the right about, and walked back to the altar again, 
the blown-out candl-e that had been on the near side of us before 
was now on the off side, the National Guards set down their 
muskets and began at their sandwiches again. We had to wait 
an hour and a half at least before the great procession arrived. 
The guns without w-ent on booming all the while at intervals, 
and as we heard each, the audience gave a kind of " ahahah I " 
such as you hear when the rockets go up at Vauxhall. 

At last the real Procession came, 

Then the drums began to beat as formerly, the Nationals to 
get under arms, the clergymen were sent for and went, and pres. 



THE SECOXD J-'CXERAL OE XAFOLl^OiV. 



59' 



ently— yes, there was the tall cross-bearer at the head of the 
procession, and they came back I 

They chanted something in a weak, snuffling, lugubrious 
manner, to the melancholy bray of a serpent. 

Crash ! however, Mr. Habeneck and the fiddlers in the organ- 
loft pealed out a wild shrill march, which stopped the reverend 
gentleman, and in the midst of this music — 

And of a great trampling of feet and clattering, 

And of a great crowd of Generals and Officers in fine clothes, 

With the Prince de Joinville marching quickly at the head 
of the procession. 

And while everybody's heart was thumping as hard as 
possible. 

Napoleon's coffin passed. 

It was done in an instant. A box covered with a great red 
cross — a dingy-looking crown lying on the top of it — seamen on 
one side and Invalids on the other — they had passed in an in- 
stant and were up the aisle. 

A faint snuffiing sound, as before, was heard from the offi- 
ciating priests, but we knew of nothing more. It is said that 
old Louis Philippe was standing at the catafalque, whither the 
Prince de Joinville advanced and said, "Sire, I bring ycu the 
body of the Emperor Napoleon."' 

Louis Philippe answered, " 1 receive it in the name of 
France." Bertrand put on the body the most glorious victor- 
ious sword that ever has been forged since the apt descendants 
of the first murderer learned how to hammer steel; and the 
coffin was placed in the temple prepared for it. 

The six hundred singers and the fiddlers now commenced 
the playing and singing of a piece of music ; and a part of the 
crew of the " Belle Poule " skipped into the places that had 
been kept for them under us, and listened to the music, chew- 
ing tobacco. While the actors and fiddlers were going on, most 
of the spirits-of-wine lamps on altars went out. 

When we arrived in the open air we passed through the 
court of tlie Invalides, where thousands of people had been as- 
sembled, but where the benches were now quite bare. Then 
we came on to the terrace before the place : the old soldiers 
were firing off the great guns, which made a dreadful stunning 
noise, and frightened some of us, who did not care to pass be- 
fore the cannon and be knocked down even by the wadding. 
The guns were fired in honor of the King, who was going home 
by a back door. All the forty thousand people who covered 
the great stands before the Hotel had gone away too. The Im« 



c^C)2 THE SF.COXD FUNERAL OF NATO LEON. 

perial Barge had 'been dra^-ged up the river, and was lying 
lonely along the Quay, examined by some few shivering people 
on the shore. 

it was five o'clock when we reached home : the stars were 
shining keenly out of the frosty sky, and Francois told me that 
dinner was just ready. 

In this manner, my dear Miss Smith, the great Napoleon was 
buried. 

Farewell. 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



<99S) 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK* 

Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, 
are made against every inhabitant of this wicked \yorld, and 
the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged m its trouble 
and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of 
the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself some- 
what above water — fighting for reputation, or more likely for 
bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day with plans for appeasing 
the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger to-morrow — a man in 
such straits has hardly time to think of anything but himself, 
and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, 
and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. In the midst of 
such a combat as this, the " ingenious arts, which prevent the 
ferocity of the manners, and act upon them as an emollient '' 
(as the philosophic bard remarks in the Latin Grammar; are 
likely to be jostled to death, and then forgotten! The world 
will allow no such compromises between it and that which does 
not belong to it — no two gods must w^e serve ; but (as one has 
seen in some old portraits) the horrible glazed eyes of Necessity 
are always fixed upon you ; fly away as you will, black Care sits 
behind you, and with his ceaseless gloomy croaking drowns 
the voice of all more cheerful companions. Happy he whose 
fortune has placed him where there is calm and plenty, and 
who has the wisdom not to give up his quiet in quest of vision- 
arv gain. 

' Here is, no doubt, the reason why a man, after the period 
of his boyhood, or first youth, makes so few friends. Want 
and ambition (new acquaintances which are introduced to him 
along with his beard) thrust away all other society from him. 
Some old friends remain, it is true, but these are become as a 
habit— a oart of your selfishness ; and, for new ones, they are 
selfish as you are. Neither member of the new partnership has 
the capital of affection and kindly feeling, or can even afford 

* Reprinted from the U'citminslcr Rcv/eit' ior June, i?4o. (No- 66.; 

(595) 



396 CRniCAL REVIEWS 

the time that is requisite for the establishment of the new firm. 
Damp and'chill the shades of the prison-house begm to close 
round us, and that " vision splendid " which has' accompanied 
our steps in our journey daily farther from the east, fades away 
and dies into the light of common day. 

And what a common day ! what a foggy, dull, shivering 
apology for light is this kind of muddy twilight through which 
we are about to tramp and flounder for the rest of our exist- 
ence, wandering farther and farther from the beauty and fresh- 
ness and from the kindly gushing springs of clear gladness 
that made all round us green in our youth ! One wanders 
and gropes in a slough of stock-jobbing, one sinks or rises in 
a storm of politics, and in either case it is as good to fall as to 
rise — to mount a bubble on the crest of the wave, as to sink 
a stone to the bottom. 

The reader who has seen the name athxed to the head of 
this article scarcely expected to be entertained with a decla- 
mation upon ingratitude, youth, and the vanity of human pur- 
suits, which may seem at first sight to have little to do with 
the subject in hand. But (although we reserve the privilege 
of discoursing upon whatever subject shall suit us, and by no 
means admit the public has any right to ask in our sentences 
for any meaning, or any connection whatever) it happens that, 
in this particular instance, there is an undoubted connection, 
In Susan's case, as recorded by Wordsworth, what connection 
had the corner of Wood Street with a mountain ascending, 
a vision of trees, and a nest by the Uove t Why should 
the song of a thrush cause bright volumes of vapor to glide 
through Lothbury, and a river to flow on through the vale of 
Cheapside.^ As she stood at the corner of Wood' Street, 
a mop and a pail in her hand most likely, she heard the 
bird singing, and straightway began pining and yearning for 
the days of her youth, forgetting the proper business of 
the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight 
of some of Mr. Cruikshank's works — the " Busen fiihlt sich 
jugendlioh erschiittert," the "' schwankende Gestalten " of 
youth flit before one again, — Cruikshank's thrush begins 
to pipe and carol, as in the days of boyhood ; hence misty 
moralities, reflections, and sad and pleasant remembrances 
arise, tie is the friend of the young especially. Have we not 
read all the story-books that his wonderful pencil has illus- 
trated } Did we not forego tarts, in order to buy his " Break- 
ing-up,"" or Iiis *' l'"ashioiKibie Mousirosities " of the year eight- 
een hundred and something? Have we not before us, at this 



GliORCF, CKC-JAS/.-A.VA'. 597 



verv moment, a print.-one of Hie admirable ■■ Illustrations of 
PhJenolot'V "—which entire work was purchased by a jomt-stock 
company of boys, each drawing lots afterwards for the separate 
prints, and taking his choice in rotation ' 1 he wnter of th.s, 
fo", h'ad the honor of drawing the first lot, -nd set.ed m.me- 
dia elv upon " Philoprogenitiveness "—a marvel ou pnnt (our 
copy i^s not at all inlproved by being colored, which operauon 
^,^%forraed on it iurselves)-a marvel ous print, mcleed,- 
fuU of ino-enuitv and fine jovial humor. A father possessor of 
an eno nTous n'ose and family, is surrounded by the latter, who 
are, some of them, embracing the former 1 re composi ,o.r 
writhes and twists about like the Kermes of Rubens. No le s 
than seven little men and women m nightcaps, n frocks, m 
Libs n b eeches, are clambering about the head, knees, ana 
a ms of the man ^vith the nose ; their ^X'' ^"VZZTo^Z 
urally developed-the twins in the cradle have noses of the 
most^onsiderablekind. The second daughter who is vvatch- 
,n- them ■ the voungest but two, who sits squalling in a ceuain 
wkker chair ; the eldest son, who is yawning ,; the eldest dauglv 
ter who is preparing with the gravy of two mutton-chops a 
stvorv dish^of Vorklhire pudding for eighteen persons ; the 
vouth's who are e.xamiping her operations (one a I'^^^O, g^ntle- 
inan. in a remarkably neat nigh.cap and pma ore, who has jus 
had his finger in the pudding) ; the genius who l''^/' ;°'^^ °" 
the slate, a^id the two honest lads who are hugging the good- 
rumorld washerwoman, their mother,-all all, -- ' '™ >. 
woman, have nosesof the largest size, ^"t l^f"'!' °™? "^ '^ "'> 
are they, and yet everybody must be charmed with tlie pie ure 
I is u of grotesque beatny. The artist has at the back of 
his own skull, we are certain, a huge bump of Pl^'loP^f-'"- 
ness He loves children in his heart ; every one of those tie 
a drawn is perfectly happy, and jovial, and affectionate and 
innocent as possible. He makes them with large noses bu he 
loves them, and you always find something kind ' t''^ "^'^^ 
of his humor, and the ugliness ''"■'^^^^'^ '^y, ^ , f^ 'S^^^ 
beautv. The smiling mother reconciles one with all the hideous 
family : thev liaxe all something of the mother in them-soine 
thine- kind, and senerous, and tcnde-. 

Knigh-s. i,r Sweeting's Alley; Fairburn's, in a court off 
LudtatI Hill; Hone's, in I-'leet Street-bright, enchanted 
pala?etwHch George Cruikshank used to people with gi^imng 
antastical imps, and merry, harmless =P"te^-where aie they^ 
Fail-burn's shop knows h.m no more ; not °"'y ha^2"e ^to 
disappeared from Sweeting's Alley, but, as we are gnen to 



59^ CRrncAL rei'ifavs. 

undersLancl Sweeting's A^ey has disappeared from the face of 
he L,iobe;_ blop, tne atrocious Castlereagh, the sainted Caro- 
hne_(in a tight pehsse, witli feathers in her head), the '' Dandv 
ot sixty, ' who used to glance at us from Hone's friendly win- 
dows-where are tliey ? Mr. Cruikshank may have drawn a 
thousand better things since the days when these were • but 
they are to us a thousand times more pleasing than anything 
else he lias done. .How we used to believe in them i to^ stray 
miles out of the way on holidays, in order to ponder for an 
hour before that delightful window in Sweeting's Alley ' in 
walks through Fleet Street, to vanish abruptly down Fairburn's 
passage, and there make one at his "charming gratis " exhibi- 
tion. There used to be a crowd round the window in those 
days, of grinning, good-natured mechanics, who spelt the songs 
and spoke them out for the benefit of the company, and who 
received the points of humor with a general sympathizing roar. 
Where are these people now ? You never hear any laughing 
atHE. ; his pictures are a great deal too genteel for that--, 
poll e points of wit, which strike one as exceedingly clever and 
of wa^ ''''"^^ """^ ^° ""'^^ '" ^ '^''^^^' gentlemanlike kind 

There must be no smiling with Cruikshank. A man who 
does not laugh outright is a dullard, and has no heart ; even 
the old aandy of sixty must have laughed at his own wondrous 
grotesque image as they say Louis Philippe did, who saw all 
the caricatures that were made of himself. And there are 
some of Cruikshank's designs which have the blessed faculty 
of creating laughter as often as you see them. As Di-o-orv 
says m the play, who is bidden by his master not to lau-h u^hile 
waiting at table-'' Don't" tell the story of Grouse in the Gui> 
room master, or I can't help laughing.'- Repeat that history 
evei so often and at the proper moment, l-onest Diogory is 

hasVis ^^ ■ ^^T'^V"""' "^ ^^^"^^- ''^'^ ^^''-^ CruilTshank 

'pn f ?S'''^ '".,^^'^ Gun-room." There h a fellow in the 

JnelT f'LYT""''" ;'^'^\' ''^'''''- ^^ '''' ^P ^^^^^'^^i» little 
general, that has made us happy any time these sixteen years • 

his huge mouth is a perpetual well of laughter— buckets full of 
fun can be drawn from it. We have fomied no s:- - " friend- 
ships as that boyish one of the man with the m(H:in. But 
though,, in our eyes, Mr. Cruikshank reached liis apogee some 
eighteen years since, it must not be imagined that such is really 
he case. Eighteen sets of children have since then learned to 

be brought up in the same delightful faith. It is not the artist 



GEORGE CRUIKSHAXK. ^gg 

who fails, but the men who grow cold — the men, from whom the 
illusions (why illusions ? realities) of youth disappear one by 
one ; who have no leisure to be liappy, no blessed holidays, 
but only fresh cares at INIidsummer and Christmas, being the 
inevitable seasons which bring us bills instead of pleasures. 
Tom, who comes bounding home from school, has the doctor's 
account in his trunk, and his father goes to sleep at the panto- 
mime to which he takes him. Pater infdix^ you too have 
laughed at clown, and the magic wand of spangled harlequin ; 
what delightful enchantment did it wave around you, in the 
golden days " when George the Third was king ! " But our 
clown lies in his grave ; and our harlequin, Ellar, prince of 
how many enchanted islands, was he not at Bow Stieet the 
other day,* in his dirty, tattered, faded motley — seized as a 
law-breaker, for acting at a penny, theatre, after having well- 
nigh starved in the streets, where nobody would listen to his 
old guitar ? No one gave a shilling to bless him : not one of 
us who owe him so much. 

We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased 
at finding his name in such company as that of Clown and 
Harlequin ; but he, like them, is certainly the children's friend. 
His drawings abound in feeling for these little ones, and hid- 
eous as in the course of his duty he is from time to time com- 
pelled to design them, he never sketches one without a certain 
pity for it, and imparting to the figure a certain grotesque 
grace. In happy schoolboys he revels ; plum-pudding and 
holidays his needle has engraved over and over again ; there 
is a design in one of the comic almanacs of some young gentle- 
men who are employed in administering to a schoolfellow 
the correction of the pump, which is as graceful and elegant 
as a drawing of Stothard. Dull books about children George 
Cruikshank makes bright with illustrations — there is one pub- 
lished by the ingenious and opulent Mr. Tegg. It is entitled 
" Mirth 'and Morality," the mirth being, for the most part, on 
the side of the designer — the morality, unexceptionable cer- 
tainly, the author's capital. Here are then, to these moralities, 
a smiling train of mirths supplied by George Cruikshank.. 
See yonder little fellows butterfly-hunting across a common 1 
Such a light, brisk, air\-, gentlemanlike drawing was never 
made upon such a tiienie. Who, cries the author — 

'■ Who has not chased the butterfly, 

And crushed ito slendLr legs r.nd wings. 
And heaved a moralizing sigh : 

Alas! liow frail are liuman things! " 

* This was written in 1S40. 



6oo • CRITICAL RE]' JEWS. 

A very unexceptionable morality truly ; but it would have 
puzzled'another than (George Cruikshank to make mirth out of 
it as he has done. Away, surely not on the wings of these 
verses, Cruikshank's imagination begins to soar ; and he 
makes us three darling little men on a green common, backed 
by old f ami-houses, somewhere about May. A great mixture 
of blue and clouds in the air, a strong fresh breeze stirring, 
Tom's jacket flapping in the same, in order to bring down the 
insect queen or king of spring that is fluttering above him, — ■ 
he renders all this with a few strokes on a little block of wood 
not two inches square, upon which one may gaze for hours, so 
merry and life-like a scene doe^ it present. What a charming 
creative power is this, what a privilege — to be a god, and 
create little worlds upon paper, and whole generations of 
smiling, jovial men, women, and children half inch high, whose 
portraits are, carried abroad, and have the faculty of making 
us monsters of six feet curious and happy in our turn. Now, 
who would imagine that an artist could make anything of such 
a subject as this? The writer begins by stating, — 

" I love to go back to the days of my youth, 

And to reckon my joys to the letter. 
And to count o'er the friends that 1 have in the world. 

A}\ and lliose tvho arc ::;on,- to a better.^' 

This brings him to the consideration of his uncle. *' Of all 
the men I have ever known,'" says he, "• my uncle united the 
greatest degree of cheerfulness with the sobriety of manhood 
Though a man when I was a bo}-, he was yet one of the most 
agreeable companions I ever possessed. * * * He embarked 
for America, and nearly twenty years passed by before he 
came back again; ''-' * * but oh, how altered! — he w-as m 
every sense of the word an old man, his body and mind were 
enfeebled, and second childishness had come upon him. How 
often have I bent over him, vainly endeavoring to recall to his 
memory the scenes we had shared together : and how fre- 
quently, With an aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and 
lustreless eye, while he has amused himself in clapping his 
hands and singing with a quavering voice a verse of a psalm.'' 
Alas ! such are the consequences of long residences in America' 
and of old age even in uncles ! Well, the point of this mo- 
rality is, that th.e uncle one day in the morning of life vowed 
that he would catch his two nephews and tie them together, 
ay, and actually did so, for all the efforts the rogues made to 
run away from him ; but he was so fatigued that he declared 
he never would make the attempt again, whereupon the nephew 



GEORGE CRUIKSFIANK. 60 1 

remarks, — "Often since then, when engaged in enterprises be- 
yond my strength, have [ called to mind the determination of 
my uncle." 

Does it not seem impossible to make a picture out of this ? 
And yet George Cruikshank has produced a charming design, 
in which the uncles and nephews are so prettily portrayed that 
one is reconciled to their existence, with all their moralities. 
Many more of the mirths in this little book are excellent, es- 
pecially a great figure of a parson entering church on horse- 
back, — an enormous parson truly, calm, unconscious, unwieldy. 
As Zeuxis had a bevy of virgins in order to make his famous 
picture — his express virgin — a clerical host must have passed 
under Cruikshank's eyes before he sketched this little enor- 
mous parson of parsons. 

Being on the subject of children's books, how shall we 
enough praise the delightful German nursery-tales, and Cruik- 
shank's illustrations of them ? We coupled his name with 
pantomime awhile since, and sure never pantomimes were more 
charming than these. Of all the artists that ever drew, from 
Michael Angelo upwards and downwards, Cruikshank was the 
nan to illustrate these tales, and give them just the proper 
admixture of the grotesque, the wonderful, and the graceful. 
May all Mother Bunch's collection be similarly indebted to 
hnn ; may " Jack the Giant Killer," may " Tom Thumb," may 
" Puss in Boots," be one day revivified by his pencil. Is not 
Whittington sitting yet on Highgate Hill, and poor Cinderella 
(in the sweetest of all fairy stories) still pining in her lonely 
chimney nook t A man who has a true affection for these de- 
lightful companions of his youth is bound to be grateful to 
them if he can, and we pray Mr. Cruikshank to remember 
them. 

It is folly to say that this or that kind of humor is too good 
for the public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best 
humor that we know of has been as eagerly received by the 
public as by the most delicate connoisseur. There is hardly a 
man in England who can read but will laugh at Falstaff and 
the humor of Joseph Andrews ] and honest Mr. Pickwick's 
story can be felt and loved by any person above the age of six. 
Some may have a keener enjoyment of it than others, but all 
the world can be merry over it, and is always ready to welcome 
it. The best criterion of good-humor is success, and what a- 
share of this has Mr. Cruikshank had ! how many millions of 
mortals has he made happy I We have heard very profound 
persons talk philosophically of the marvellous and mysterious 



5o2 CR/T/CAL RF.rrFAVS. 

manner in wJuch lie li^s suilod liimself to the iwwc.—fait librer 
hifibrcpopulaire{As Napoleon boasted of himself), supplied a 
peculiar want felt at a peculiar period, the simple secret of 
which is, as we take it. that h.e, living amongst the public, has 
with them a general v.ide-hearted sympathy, that he laughs at 
what they laugh at, that he has a kindly spirit of enjoyment, 
with not a morsel of mysticism in his composition ; that he 
pities and loves the poor, and jokes at the follies of the great, 
and that he addresses all in a perfectly sincere and manly way. 
To be greath' successful as a professional humorist, as in an}- 
other calling, a man must be quite honest, and show that his 
heart is in his work. A bad preacher will get admiration and 
a hearing w-ith this point in his favor, where a man of thre^ 
times his acquirements will only find indifference and coldness. 
Is any man more remarkable than our artist for tellmg the 
truth after his own manner ? Hogarth's honesty of purpose 
was as conspicuous in an earlier time, and we fancy that Gilray 
would have been far more successful and more powerful but 
for that unhappy bribe, which turned the whole course of his 
humor into an unnatural channel. Cruik -hank would not for 
any bribe say what he did not think, or lend his aid to sneer 
down anything meritorious, or to praise any thing or person 
that deserved censure. When he levelled his wit against the 
Regent, and did his very prettiest for the Princess, he most 
certainly believed, along with the great body Oi; the people 
whom he represents, that the Princess was the most spotless, 
pure-mannered darling of a Princess that ever married a heart- 
less debauchee of a Prince Royal. Did not millions believe 
with him, and noble and learned lords take their oaths to her 
Royal Highness's innocence? Cruikshank would not stand 
by and see a woman ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, 
he and the people belaboring with all their might the partv' 
who were making the attack, and determining, from pure sym- 
pathy and indignation, that the woman must be innocent be- 
cause her hu.sband treated her so foully. 

To be sure we have never heard so much from Mr. Cruik- 
shank's own lips, but any man who will examine these old 
drawings, which first made him famous, will see what an hon- 
est, hearty hatred the champion of woman has for all wdio 
abuse her,' and wdll admire the energy with which he flings his 
wood-blocks at all who side against her. Canning, Castle- 
reagh, Bexley, Sidmouth, he is at them, one and all ; and as 
for the Prince, up to what a whippina;-post of ridicule did lie 
tie that unfortunate old man I ,\nd do not let squeamish 



GEORGE CRUTKSHANK. 



603 



Tories cry out about disloyalty : if the crown does wrong, the 
crown must be corrected by the nation, out of respect, of 
course, for the crown. In those days, and by those people who 
so bitterly attacked the son, no word was ever breathed against 
the father, simply because he was a good husband, and a sober, 
thrifty, pious, orderly man. 

This attack upon the Prince Regent we believe to have 
been Mr. Cruikshank's only effort as a party politician. Some 
early manifestoes against Napoleon we find, it is true, done in 
the regular John Bull style, with the Gilray model for the little 
upstart Corsican : but as soon as the Emperor had yielded to 
stern fortune our artist's heart relented (as Beranger's did on 
the other side of the water), and many of our reader will doubt- 
less recollect a fine drawing of " Louis XVIII. trying on Na- 
poleon's boots," which did not certainly fit the gouty son of 
Saint Louis. Such satirical hits as these, however, must not be 
considered as political, or as anything more that the expressioi» 
of the artist's national British idea of Frenchmen. 

It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruik • 
shank entertains a considerable contempt. Let the reader ex- 
amine the '' Life in Paris," or the five-hundred designs in which 
Frenchmen are introduced, and he wdll find them almost invari- 
ably thin, with ludicrous spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched 
hands, shrugging shoulders, and queer hair and mustaches. 
He has the British idea of a Frenchman ; and if he does not 
believe that the inhabitants of France are for the most part 
dancing-masters and barbers, yet takes care not to depict such 
in preference, and would not speak too well of them. It is 
curious how these traditions endure. In France, at the pres- 
ent moment, the Englishman on the stage is the caricatured 
Englishman at the time of the w^ar, with a shock red head, a 
long white coat, and invariable gaiters. Those who wish to 
study this subject should peruse Monsieur Paul de Kock's 
histories of " Lord Boulingrog " and " Lady Crockmilove." On 
the other hand, the old emigre hzs taken his station amongst 
us, and we doubt if a good British gallery would understand 
that such and such a character ivas a Frenchman unless he 
appeared in the ancient traditional costume. 

A curious book, called " Life in Paris," published in 1S22, 
contains a number of the arti: t"s plates in the aquatint style j 
and though we believe he has never been in that capital, the de- 
signs have a great deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. 
A villanous race of shoulder-shrugging mortals are his French- 
men indeed. And the heroes of the tale, a certain Mr. Dick 



6o4 . CRITICAL RF.r/EirS. 

Wildtire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain 0"Shuffleton, arc made 
to show the true British superiority, on every occasion when 
Britons and French are brought together. This book was one 
among the many that the designer's genius has caused to be 
popular; the plates -are not carefully executed, but, being col- 
ored, have a pleasant, lively look. The same style was adopted 
in the once famous book called " Tom and Jerry, or Life in 
London," which must have a word of notice here, for, although 
by no means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his reputation was 
extraordinarily raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as popular 
twenty years since as Mr. Pick-wick and Sam Weller now are ; 
and often have we wished, while reading the biographies of the 
latter celebrated personages, that they had. been described as.. 
well by Mr. Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's pen. 

As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human 
affairs and the evanescent nature of reputation, we have 
been to the British Museum and no less than five circulating 
libraries in quest of the book, and " Life in London," alas, is 
not to be found at any one of them. We can only, therefore, 
speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very clear 
remembrance of the leather-gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the 
green spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian 
Tom. They were the schoolboy's delight ; and in the days 
when the work appeared we firmly believed the three heroes 
above named to be types of the most elegant, fashionable young 
fellows the town afforded, and thought their occupations and 
amusements were those of all high-bred English gentlemen. 
Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple Bar ; Tom and 
Jerry dancing at Almack's ; or fiirting in the saloon at the 
"theatre ; at the night-houses, after the play ; at Tom Cribb's,- 
examining the silver cup then in the possession of that cham- 
pion j at the chambers of Bob Logic, who, seated at a cabinet 
piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom and Kate are 
dancing ; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row ; or examining the 
poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains knocked off 
before hanging : all these scenes remain indelibly engraved 
upon the mind, and so far we are independent of all the circu- 
lating libraries in London. 

As to the literary con,tents of the book, they have passed 
sheer away. It w^as, most likely, not particularly refined ;. 
nay, .the chances are that it was absolutely vulgar. But it must" 
have had some merit of its own, that is clear ; it must have 
given striking descriptions of life in some part or other of Lon- 
don, for all London read it, and went to see it in its dramatic 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 605 

shape. The artist, it is said, wished to close the career of the 
three heroes by bringing them all to ruin, but the writer, or pub- 
lishers, would not allow any such melancholy subjects to dash 
the merriment of the public, and we believe Tom, Jerry, and 
Logic, were married off at the end of the tale, as if they had 
been the most moral personages in the w^orld. There is some 
goodness in this pity, which authors and the public are disposed 
to show towards certain agreeable, disreputable characters ot 
romance. Who would mar the prospects of honest Roderick 
Random, or Charles Surface, or Tom Jones ? only a very stern 
moralist indeed. And in regard of Jerry Hawthorn and that 
hero without a surname, Corinthian Tom, Mr. Cruikshank, we 
make little doubt, was glad in his heart that he was not allowed 
to have his own way. 

Soon after the "Tom and Jerfy'' and the "Life in Paris," 
Mr. Cruikshank produced a much more elaborate set of prints, 
in a work which was called " Points of Humor." These 
*' Points " were selected from various comic works, and did not, 
we believe, extend beyond a couple of numbers, containing 
about a score of copper-plates. The collector of humorous 
designs cannot fail to have them in his portfolio, for they con- 
tain some of the very best efforts of Mr. Cruikshank's genius, 
and though not quite so highly labored as some of his later pro- 
ductions, are none the worse, in our opinion, for their compara- 
tive want of finish. All the effects are perfectly given, and the 
expression is as good as it could be in the most delicare en- 
graving upon steel. The artist's style, too, was then completely 
formed ; and, for our parts, we should say that we preferred 
his manner of 1825 to any other which he has adopted since. 
The first picture, which is' called " The Point of Honor," illus- 
trates the old story of the ofBcer who, on being accused of 
cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came among his brother 
officers and flung a lighted grenade down upon the floor, before 
which his comrades fled ignominiously. This design is capital, 
and the outward rush of heroes, walking, trampling, twisting, 
scuffling at the door, is in the best style of the grotesque. You 
see but^the back of these gentlemen ; into v/hich, nevertheless, 
the artist has managed to throw an expression of ludicrous 
agony that one could scarcely have expected to find in such a 
part of the human figure. The next plate is not less good. It 
represents a couple who, having been found one night npsy, 
and lying in the same gutter, were, by a charitable though mis- 
guided gentleman, supposed to be man and wife, and put 
comfortably to bed together. The morning came ; fancy the 



6o6 CRITICAL RF. VIEWS. 

surprise of this interesting pair when they awoke and discovered 
their situation. Fancy the manner, too, in which Cruikshanl< 
has depicted them, to which words cannot do justice. It \\ 
needless to state that this fortuitous and temporary union was 
followed by one more lasting and sentimental, and that these ; 
two worthy persons were married, and lived happily ever after. 

We should like to go through every one of these prints. There : 
is the jolly miller, who, returning home at night, calls upon his; 
wife to get him a supper, and falls to upon rashers of bacon i 
and ale. How he gormandizes, that jolly miller ! rasher after: 
rasher, how they pass away , frizzling and smoking from the: 
gridiron down that immense grinning gulf of a mouth. Poon 
wife! how she pines and frets, at that untimely hour of mid*' 
night to be obliged to fry, fry, fry perpetually, and minister tdi 
the monster's appetite. And yonder in the clock : what agon>| 
ized face is that we see ? By heavens, it is the squire of the 
parish. What business has he there t Let us not ask. Suffice 
it to say, that he has, in the hurry of the moment, left up stairs- 

his br ; his — psha ! a part of his dress, in short, with a 

number of bank-notes in the pockets. Look in the next page, 
and you will see the ferocious, bacon-devouring ruffian of ai 
miller is actually causing this garment to be carried through the 
village and cried by the town-crier. And we blush to be obliged : 
to say that the demoralized miller never offered to return the 
bank-notes, although he was so mighty scrupulous in endeavor 
ing to find an owner for the corduroy portfolio in which he had 
found them. 

Passing from this painful subject, we come, we regret to 
state, to a series of prints representing personages not a \vhit' 
more moral. Burns's famous " Jolly Beggars " have all had: 
their portraits drawn by Cruikshank. There is the lovely* 
'' hempen widow," quite as interesting and romantic as the 
famous Mrs. Sheppard, who has at the lamented demise of her 
husband adopted the very same consolation. 

" My curse upon tliem every one, 

They've hanged my braw John Highlandinan; 

* ' * * * * 

And now a widow I must mourn 

Departed joys tliat ne'er return ; 

No comfort but a hearty can 

When I think on John Higlilandman." 

Sweet " raucle carlin,-' she has none of the sentimentality of i 
the English highwaymen's lady ; but being wooed by a tinker 
and 

" A pigmy scraper wi" his fiddle 

Wh.T. us'd to trvstes and fairs to driddle,"' 



GEORGE CRUIKSIJAXK. 607 

prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker 
sings with a noble candor, worthy of a fellow of his strength of 
body and station in life — 

" My bonnie lass, I work in brass, 

A tinker is my station : 
I've travell'd round all Christian ground 

In this my occupation. 
I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd , 

In many a noble squadron ; 
But vain they search'd when off I march'd 

To go an' clout the caudron." 

It was his ruling passion. What was military glory to him, for- 
sooth ? He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom 
and his copper kettle a thousand times better — a kind of hard- 
ware Diogenes. Of fiddling he has no better opinion. The 
picture represents the " sturdy caird " taking " poor gut- 
scraper " by the beard, — drawing his " roosty rapier," and 
swearing to "speet him like a pliver'' unless he would relin- 
quish the bonnie lassie forever — 

" Wi' ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee 
Upon his hunkers bended, 
An' pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face, 
An' so the quarrel ended." 

Hark how the tinker apostrophizes the violinist, stating to the 
widow at the same time the advantages which she might expect 
from an alliance with himself : — 

" Despise that shrimp, that withered imp, 
Wi' a' his noise and caperin' : 
And take a share with those that bear 
The budget and the apron ! 

'And by that stowp, my faith an' houpe, 

An' by that dear Kiibaigie ! 
If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, 
May I ne'er weet my craigie." 

Cruikshank's caird is a noble creature ; his face and figure 
show him to be fully capable of doing and saying all that is 
above written of him. 

In the second part, the old tale of " The Three Hunchbacked 
Fiddlers " is illustrated with equal felicity. The famous classical 
dinners and duel in " Peregrine Pickle " are also excellent in 
their way ; and the connoisseur of prints and etchings may see 
in the latter plate, and in another in this volume, how great the 
artist's mechanical skill is as an etcher. The distant view of the 
city in the duel, and of a market-place in " The Quack Doctor," 
are delightful specimens of the artist's skill in depicting build- 
ings and backgrounds. They are touched with a grace, truth, 



6o8 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



and dexterity of workmanship that leave nothmg to desire. We 
have before mentioned the man with the mouth, which_ appears 
in this number emblematical of gout and mdigestion, ni which 
the artist has shown all the fancy of Callot. Little demons, 
with long saws for noses, are making dreadful incisions into the 
toes of the unhappy sufferer; some are bringing pans o hofc 
coals to keep the wounded member warm; a huge, solemn 
nio-htmare sits on the invalid's chest, staring solemnly into his 
eves • a monster, with a pair of drumsticks, is banging a , 
devil's tattoo on his forehead : .and a pair of imps are naihng • 
great tenpenny nails into his hands to make his happmess 

^^"^TheTate Mr. Clark's excellent work, '^ Three Courses and a 
Dessert," was published at a time when the rage for comic 
stories was not so great as it since has been, and Messrs^ Clark 
and Cruikshank only sold their hundreds where Messrs. Dickens 
and Phiz dispose of their thousands. But if our recommenda^ 
tion can in any way influence the reader, we would enjom him 
to have a copy of the " Three Courses/' that contams some of 
the best designs of our artist, and some of the most amusmg 
tales in our language. The invention of the pictures, for which 
Mr. Clark takes credit to himself, says a great deal for his wit 
and fancy. Can we, for instance, praise too highly the man 
who invented that wonderful oyster ? , , . ,. ^ J 

Examine him well ; his beard, his pearl, his little round 
stomach, and his sweet smile. Only oysters know how to 
smile in this way ; cool, gentle, waggish, and yet inexpressibly' 
innocent and winning. Dando himself must have allowed such ^ 
an artless native to go free, and consigned him to the glassy, 
cool, translucent wave again. . , ' . . , 

In writing upon such subjects as these with which we have 
been furnished, it can hardly be expected that we should fol- 
low any fixed plan and order— we must therefore take such ad- 
vantage as we may, and seize upon our subject when and 
wherever we can lay hold of him. tit 

For Tews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, 
beadles, 'policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, 
pumps, dustmen, very short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles 
and ladies with aquiline noses, remarkably taper waists, and 
wonderfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruikshank has a special predi- 
lection. The tribe of Israelites he has studied with amazing 
gusto; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard, 
Ind the immortal Fagin of " Oliver Twist." thereabouts lies 
the comic vis in these persons and things ? Why should a 



CJ'.ORlJE CKL-/K'SnAXK 



G09 



beadle be comic, and his opposite a charity boy ? Why should 
a tall life-guardsman have something in him essentially absurd \ 
Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long? What is 
there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a 
long nose always provoke the beholder to laughter ? These 
points may be metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It 
is probable that Mr, Cruikshank could not give an accurate 
definition of that which is ridiculous in these objects, but his 
instinct has told him that fun lurks in them, and cold must be 
the heart that can pass by the pantaloons of his charity boys, 
the Hessian boots of his dandies, and the fan-tail hats of his 
dustmen, without respectful wonder. 

He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There 
is, in the first place, the professional dustman, who, having in 
the enthusiastic exercise of his delightful trade, laid hands 
upon property not strictly his own, is pursued, we presume, by 
the right owner, from whom he flies as fast as his crooked 
shanks will carry him. 

What a curious picture it is — the horrid rickety houses in 
some dingy suburb of London, the grinning cobbler, the 
smothered butcher, the very trees which are covered with dust 
— it is fine to look at the different expressions of the two in- 
teresting fugitives. The fiery charioteer who belabors the poor 
donkey has still a glance for his brother on foot, on whom 
Vpunishment is about to descend. And not a little curious is it 
to think of the creative power of the man who has arranged 
this little tale of low life. How logically it is conducted, how 
cleverly each one of the accessories is made to contribute to 
the effect of the whole. What a deal of thought and humor 
has the artist expended on this little block of wood ; a large 
picture might have been painted out of the very same materials, 
which Mr. Cruikshank, out of his wondrous fund of merri- 
' ment and observation, can afford to throw away upon a draw- 
ing not two inches long. From the practical dustmen we pass 
to those purely poetical. There are three of them who rise on 
clouds of their own raising, the very genii of the sack and 
shovel. 

Is there no one to write a sonnet to these ? — and yet a whole 
poem was written about Peter Bell the Wagoner, a character 
by no means so poetic. 

And lastly, M^e have the dustman in love : the honest fellow 
having seen a young beauty stepping out of a gin shop on a Sun- 
day morning, is pressing eagerly his suit. 

' Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who 

39 



6io 



CRI TIC A L RE I 'IE VVS. 



labors 'in his own sound and hearty way to teach his country- , 
men the dangers of that drink. In the " Sketch-Book " is a 
plate upon the subject, remarkable for fancy and beauty of 
desio-n : it is called the " Gin Juggernaut," and represents a 
hideous moving palace, with a reeking still at the roof and vast 
o-in-barrels for wheels, under which unhappy millions are 
crashed to death. An immense black cloud of desolation 
covers over the country through which the gin monster has 
passed, dimly looming through the darkness whereof you see 
an a^n-eeable prospect of gibbets with men dangling, burnt 
houses, &c. The vast cloud comes sweeping on in the wake 
of this horrible body-crusher ; and you see, by way of contrast, 
a distant, smiling, sunshiny tract of old English country, where 
crin as yet is not known. The allegory is as good, as earnest, 
and as fanciful as one of John Bunyan's, and we have often 
fancied there was a similarity between the men. 

The reader will examine the work called " My Sketch- 
Book " with not a little amusement, and may gather from it, as 
we fancy, a good deal of information regarding the character 
of the individual man, George Cruikshank : what points strike 
his eve as a painter ; what move his anger or admiration as 
a moValist ; what classes he seems most especially disposea 
to observe, and what to ridicule. There are quacks of all 
kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred ; quack dandies who 
assume under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, the most grotesque 
appearance possible— their hats grow larger, their legs mhnitely 
more crooked and lean ; the tassels of their canes swell out to 
a most preposterous size ; the tails of their coats dwindle away, 
and finish where coat-tails generally begin. Let us lay a wager 
that Cruikshank, a man of the people if ever there was one, 
heartily hates and depises these supercilious, swaggering young ; 
gentlemen ; and his contempt is not a whit the less laudable • 
because there may be tant soit pen of prejudice m it. It is, 
rio-ht and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to > 
hate Frenchmen ; in which sentiment (as we have before said) | 
George Cruikshank undoubtedly shares. In the "Sunday in 
London," * Monsieur the Chef is instructing a kitchen-maid I 

following Unes-ever f,esh-by the author of - Headlong Halh" P^V^/^/hed ye.^^ ) 
Globe and Traveller, are an excellent ccminient on several of the cuts from the 



* The 
Rgo in the 
"Sunday in London : " — 



II. 



The poor man's sin^ are glaring ; I " The rich ma. '^ sins are Wdde° 

In the face of ghostly warning In the pomp of wealth and station, 



He is caught in the fact 1 And escape tlie sjgln 

Of an overt act, 
Buying greens on Sunday morning 



Of an overt act I Of the children of light, 

..: r.r/nc on <^Mnrl.v morning. Who are wise in the.r generation. 



CE OR GE L 'A' C'/A'SJ/A A' A'. 5 j I 

how to compound some rascally French kickshaw or the other 
—a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an air he wears that 
nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, 
and ogles, and grins : they are all the same, these mounseers ; 
there are other two fellows — nwrbleu ! oxi^ is putting his dirty 
fingers into the saucepan ; there are frogs cooking in it, no 
doubt ; and just over some other dish of abomination, anothef 
dirty rascal is taking snuff ! Never mind, the sauce won't be 
hurt by a few ingredients more or less. Three such fellows as 
these are not worth one Englishman, that's clear. There is 
one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow v/ith the 
beef : he could beat all three in five minutes. We cannot be 
certain that such was the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank's 
mind when he made the design ; but some feelings of the sort 
were no doubt entertained by him. 

Against dandy footmen he is particularly severe. He hates 
idlers, pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best 
he may. Who does not recollect the famous picture, " What 
is Taxes, Thomas .' " What is taxes indeed ; well may that 
vast, over-fed, lounging flunkey ask the question of his associate 
Thomas : and yet not well, for all that'lliomas sa3^s in reply 
is, '^ I divit kfiowT '• O hdciti pliishirolcE,'' what a charming 
state of ignorance is yours ! In the " Sketch-Book " many foo? 
men make their appearance : one is a huge fat Hercules of a 
Portman Square porter, who calmly surveys another poor fel- 
low, a porter likewise, but out of livery, who comes staggering 
forward with a box that Hercules might lift with his little finger. 
Will Hercules do so ? not he. The giant can carry nothing 
heavier than a cocked-hat note on a silver tray, and his labors 
are to walk from his sentry-box to the door, and from the door 
back to his sentry-box, and to read the Sunday paper, and to 
poke the hall fire twice or thrice, and to make five meals a day. 
Such a fellow does Cruikshank hate and scorn worse even than 
a Frenchman. 



The rich man has a kitchen, "The rich man has a cellai, 

And cooks 10 dress his dinner ; And a ready butler by him ; 

The poor who would roast, The poor must steer 

To the baker's must post, 1 For his pint of beer 

And thus becomes a sinner. Where the saint can't choose but spy hioi 

IV. VI. 

* The rich man's painted windows '• The rich man is invisible 

Hide the concert's of the quality ; I In the crowd of his gay society 

The poor can but share I But the poor man's delight 

A crack'd tiddle in the air, ' Is a sore in the sieht 

Which offends all sound morality. j And a stench in the nose of piety." 



^j2 CRITICAL RECIKWS. 

The man's master, too, comes in tor no ^mall share of oui 
artist's wrath. Inhere is a company of them at church, who 
humbly designate th.emselves '' miserable sinners ! "' Miserable 
sinners indeed ! Oh, what floods of turtle-soup, what tons ot 
turbot and lobster-sauce must have been sncrillced to make 
those sinners properly miserable. ^\\ lady with the ermuie 
tippet and dra^^-^^lin':^ feather, can we not see that she lives in 
Portland PlaceTand is the wife of an East India Director ? She 
has been to the Opera over-uight (indeed her husband, on her 
ri'Tht, with his fat hand dan-lino- over the pew-door, is at this 
mmute thinkino" of Mademoiselle Leocadie, whom he saw oe- 
hind the scenes)— she has been at the Opera over-night, which 
with a trifle of supper afterwards— a white-and-brown soup, a 
lobster-salad, some woodcocks, and a little champagne— sent 
her to bed quite comfortable. At half-past eight her maid 
brino-s her chocolate in bed, at ten she has fresh eggs and 
~ mufifins. with, perhaps, a half-hundred of prawns for breakfast, 
and so can-get over the day and the sermon till lunch-tnne 
pretty well. What an odor of musk and bergamot exhales 
from the pew !— how it is wadded, and stuffed, and spangled 
over with brass nails! what hassocks are therefor those who 
are not too fat to kneel ! what a flustering and flapping of gilt 
praver-books ; and what a pious whirring of bible leaves one 
hears all over the church, as the doctor blandly gives out the 
text ! To be miserable at this rate you must, at the very least, 
have four thousand a year : and many persons are there so en- 
amored of grief and sin, that they would willingly take the risk 
of the misery to have a life-interest in the consols that accom- 
pany it, quite careless about consequences, and skeptical as to 
the notion that a day is at hand when you must fulfil yoixr share 
of the bargain. 

Our artist loves to joke at a soldier ; in whose livery there 
appears to him to be something almost as ridiculous ^^s ui the 
uniform of the gentleman of the shoulder-knot. _ Tall lite- 
o-uardsmen and fierce grenadiers figure in many of his designs, 
and almost always in a ridiculous way Here again we have 
the honest popular English feeling which jeers at pomp or pre- 
tension of all kinds, and is especially jealous of all display ot 
military authority. " Raw Recruit,'' '' ditto dressed, ditto 
"served up." as we see them in the "Sketch-Book, are so 
many satires upon the army : Hodge with his ribbons flaunting 
in his hat, or with red coat and musket, drilled stiff and pom- 
pous, or at last, minus leg and arm, tottering about on crutches, 
does not fill our English artist with the enthusiasm that 



GEORGE CRL'/KS/IA.VA'. 



613 



follows the soldier in every other part of Europe, Jean- 
jean, the conscript in France, is laughed at to be sure, but then 
it is because he is a bad soldier ; when he comes to have a huge 
pair of mustaches and the croix-d'' honneur to driller on his 
poitrine dcafrlsec, Jeanjean becomes a member of a class that is 
more respected than any other in the French nation. The vet- 
eran soldier inspires our people with no such awe — we hold 
that democratic weapon the fist in much more honor than sabre 
and bayonet, and laugh at a man tricked out in scarlet and 
pipe-clay. 

That regiment of heroes is " marching to divine service," 
to the tune of the " British Grenadiers." There they march 
in state, and a pretty contempt our artist shows for all their 
gimcracks and trumpery. He has drawn, a perfectly English 
scene — the little blackguard boys are playing pranks round 
about the men, and shouting, " Heads up, soldier," " Eyes 
right, lobster," as little British urchins will do. Did one ever 
hear the like sentiments expressed in France .'' Shade of Na- 
poleon, we insult you by asking the question. In England, 
however, see how different the case is : and designedly or un- 
designedly, :he artist has opened to us a piece of his mind. In 
the crowd the onh'' person who admires the soldiers is the poor 
idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There is another pic- 
ture, in which the sentiment is much the same, onh', as in the 
former drawing we see Englishmen laughing at the troops of 
the line, here are Irishmen giggling at the militia. 

We have said that our artist has a great love for the droll- 
eries of the Green Island. Would any one doubt what was 
the country of the merry fellows depicted in his group of 
Paddies .'' 

" Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles, 
The rag:4ed royal race of Tara ; 
Or place me where Dick Martin rules 
The pathless wilds of Connemara." 

We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had any such good 
luck as to see the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has 
obtained a knowledge of their looks, as if the country had been 
all his life familiar to him. Could Mr. O'Connell himself desire 
anytliing more national than the scene of a drunken row, or 
could Father Mathew have a better text to preach upon ? 
There is not a broken nose in the room that is not thoroughly 
Irish. 

We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver 
manner, as characteristic too as the other. We call attention 



6i4 CRITICAL REVIEIVS 

to the cdmical look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and 
beaten by the witch's stick, in order to point out also the singu- 
lar neatness of the workmanship, and the pretty fanciful little 
glimpse of landscape that the artist has introduced in the back- 
ground. Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such homely land- 
scapes, and renders them with great delicacy and taste. Old 
villages, farm-yards, groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches, 
gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other 
old English scenes, he depicts with evident enthusiasm. 

Famous books in their day were Cruikshank's "John Gil- 
pin" and " Epping Hunt;" for though our artist does not draw 
horses very scientifically, — to use a phrase of the atelier, — he 
feels them very keenly ; and his queer animals, after one is 
used to them, answer quite as well as better. Neither is he 
very happy in trees, ancl such rustical produce ; or rather, vve 
should say, he is very original, his trees being decidedly of his 
. own make and composition, not imitated from any master. 

But what then 1 Can a man be supposed to imitate every- 
thing ? We know what the noblest study of mankind is, and 
to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined himself. That postilion 
with the people in the broken-down chaise roaring after him is 
as deaf as the post by which he passes. Suppose all the ac- 
cessories were away, could not one swear that the man was 
stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet } What is the pecu- 
liar character in a deaf man's physiognomy ? — can any person 
define it satisfactorily in words ? — not in pages ; and \lx. Cruik- 
shank has expressed it on a piece of paper not so big as the 
tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses of John Gilpin are 
much more of the equestrian order ; and as here the artist has 
only his favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to 
be said against his design. The inn and old buildings are 
charmingly designed, and nothing can be more prettily or play- 
fully touched. 

"At Edmonton his loving wife 
From the balcony spied 
Her tender husband, wond'ring much 
To see how he did ride. 

" ' Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! Here's the house I 
They all at once did cry ; 
*The dinner waits, and we are tired — ' 
Said Gilpin — ' So am I ! ' 

'* Six gentlemen upon the road 
Thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
With post-boy scamp' ring in the rear. 
They raised the hue and cry : — 



GEORGE CRUIKSIfANK'. 



" Stop thief! stop thief! — .i liigliway nia. 
Not one of them was mute ; 
And all and each that passed that way 
Did join in the pursuit. 

" And now the turnpike gates again 
Flew open in short space : 
The toji-men thinking, as before, 
That Gilpin rode a race." 



615 



The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellc-ntly depicted 
by the artist ; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner 
of designing animals, must here make a special exception in 
favor of the hens and chickens ; each has a different action, 
and is curiously natural. 

Happy are the children of all ages who have such a ballad 
and such pictures as this in store for them ! It is a comfort to 
think that wood-cuts never wear out, and that the book still 
may be had for a shilling, for those who can command that sum 
of money. 

In the '' Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen 
of Mr. Hood, our artist had not been so successful. There is 
here too much horsemanship and not enough incident for him ; 
but the portrait of Roundings the huntsman is an excellent 
sketch, and a couple of the designs contain great humor. The 
first represents the Cockney hero, who, " like a bird, was sing- 
ing out while sitting on a tree." 

And in the secontl the natural order is reversed. The stag 
having taken heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheapside 
Nimrod is most ignominiously running awa}'. 

The Piaster Hunt, we are told, is no more ; and as the 
Qua7'terly Review recommends the British public to purchase 
Mr. Catlin's pictures, as they form the only record of an inter- 
esting race now rapidly passing awav, in like manner we should 
exhort all our friends to purchase Mr. Cruickshank's designs 
of another interesting race, that is run already and for the last 
time. 

Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the 
notable tragedies of "Tom Thumb" and " Bombastes Furi- 
oso," both of which have appeared with many illustrations by 
Mr. Cruikshank. The " brave army " of Bombastes exhibit's 
a terrific display of brutal force, which must shock the sensi- 
bilities of an English Radical. And we can well understand 
the caution ofthe general, who bids this soldatesque effmere to 
begone, and not to kick up a row. 

Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous 
city would play sad havoc in it ; and we fancy the massacres of 



6i6 CRITICAL KKCIEIVS. 

Birmingham renewed, o?at least of Badajoz, which, though not 
quite so dreadful, if we may believe his Grace the Duke of 
Wellington, as the former scenes of slaughter, were neverthe- 
less severe enough : but we must not venture upon any ill- 
timed pleasantries in presence of the disturbed King Arthut 
and the awful ghost of Gaffer Thumb. 

Vv'e are thus carried at. once into the supernatural, and here 
we find Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his 
time a liltle comic pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, 
good-natured fiends possible. We have before us Chamisso's 
'' Peter Schlemihl," with Cruil^hank's designs translated into 
German, and gaining nothing by the change. The " Kinder 
und Hans-Maerchen " of Grimm are likewise ornamented with 
a frontispiece, copied from that one which appeared to the 
amusing version of the English work. The books on Phrenol- 
ogy and Time have been imitated by the same nation ; and 
even in France, whither reputation travels slower than to any 
country except China, we have seen copies of the works of 
George Cruikshank. 

He in return has complimented the French by illustrating a 
couple of Lives of Napoleon, and the " Life in Paris " before 
mentioned. He has also made designs for Victor Hugo's 
" Hans of Iceland." Strange, wild etchings were those, on a 
strange, mad subject ; not so good in our notion as the designs 
for the German books, the peculiar humor of which latter 
seemed to suit the artist exactly. There is a mixture of the 
awful and the ridiculous in these, which perpetually excites 
and keeps awake the reader's attention ; the German writer 
and the English artist seem to have an entire faith in their sub- 
ject. The reader, no doubt, remembers the awful passage in. 
" Peter Schlemihl," where the little gentleman purchases the 
shadow of that hero — " Have the kindness, noble sir, to ex- 
amine and try this bag." " He put his hand into his pocket, 
and drew thence a tolerably large bag of Cordovan leather, to 
which a couple of thongs were fixed. I took it from him, and 
immediately counted out ten gold pieces, and ten more, and 
ten more, and still other ten, whereupon I held out my hand to 
him. Done, said I, it is a bargain ; you shall have my shadow 
for your bag. The bargain was concluded ; he knelt dov/n 
before me, and 1 saw him with a wonderful neatness take my 
shadow from head to foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll 
and fold it up neatly, and at last pocket it. He then rose up, 
bowed to me once more, and walked away again, disappearing 
behind the rose-bushes. I don't know, but I thou2:ht I heard 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 617 

him laughing a little. I, however, kept fast hold of the bag. 
lM-er3^thing around me was bright in the sun, and as yet I gave 
no thought to vvhat I had done." 

This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faith- 
ful, circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most 
wonderful poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and 
supernatural that makes the narrative so curious, and like 
truth. The sun is shining with the utmost brilliancy in a great 
quiet park or garden ; there is a palace m the background, and 
a statue basking in the sun quite lonely and melancholy ; there 
is a sun-dial, on which is a deep shadow, and in the front stands 
Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand : the old gentleman is down on 
his knees to him, and has just lifted off the ground the shadow 
of one leg ; he is going to fold it back neatly, as one does the 
tails of a coat, and will show it, without any creases or crumples, 
along with the other black garments that lie in that immense 
pocket of his. Cruikshank has designed all this as if he had 
a very serious belief in the story ; he laughs, to be sure, but 
one fancies that he is a little frightened in his heart, in spite of 
all his fun and joking. 

The German tales w-e have mentioned before. " The Prince 
riding on the Fox," " Hans in Luck,'' '' The Fiddler and his 
Goose," "Heads cff," are all drawings which, albeit not be- 
fore us now, nor seen for ten years, remain indelibly fixed on 
the memory, " Heisst dii etwa Rumpelstilzchen ? " There sits 
the Queen on her throne, surrounded by grinning beef-eaters, 
and little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot through the floor in 
the excess of his tremendous despair. In one of these Ger- 
man tales, if we remember rightly, there is an account of a little 
orphan who is carried away by a pitying fairy for a term of 
seven years, and passing that period of sweet apprenticeship 
among the imps and sprites of fair}'-land. Has* our artist 
iDeen among the same company, and brought back their por- 
traits in his sketch-book.'' He is the only designer fairy-land 
has had. Callot's imps, for all their strangeness, are only of 
the earth earthy. Fuseli's fairies belong to the infernal re- 
gions ; they are monstrous, lurid, and hideously melancholy. 
Mr Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into the character 
of the '• little people." They are something like men and wo- 
men, and yet not flesh and blood ; they are laughing and mis- 
chievous, but why we knOw not. Mr. Cruikshank, however, 
has had some dream or the other, or else a natural mysterious 
instinct (as the Seherinn of Prevorst had for beholding ghosts\ 
or else some preternatural fairy revelation, which has made 



TmS CK/7YCAL RF. VIEWS. 

liim acquainted with the looks and ways of the fantastical sul> 
jects of Oberon and Titania, 

We have, unfortunately, no fairy portraits ; but, oh the 
other hand, can descend lower than fairy-land, and have seen 
fiome fine specimens of devils. One has already been raised, 
and the reader has seen him tempting a fat Dutch burgom.aster 
in an ancient gloomy market-place, such as George Cruik- 
shank can draw as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, or any man 
living. There is our friend once more ; our friend the bur 
gomaster, in a highly excited state, and running as hard as 
his great legs will carry him, with our mutual enemy at his tail. 

What are the bets : will that lonsf-les^ged bond-holder of a 
devil come up with the honest Dutchman ? It serves him 
right ; why did he put his name to stamped paper? And yet 
we should not wonder if some lucky chance should turn up in 
the burgomaster's favor, and his infernal creditor lose his labor ; 
,for one so proverbially cunning as yonder tall individual with 
the saucer eyes, it must be confessed that he has been very 
often outwitted. 

There is, for instance, the case of " The Gentleman in 
Black," which has been illustrated by our artist. A young 
French gentleman, by name AT Desonge, who having ex- 
pended his patrimony in a variety of taverns and gaming-houses, 
was one day pondering upon the exhausted state of his finances, 
and utterly at a loss to think how he should provide means for 
future support, exclaimed, very naturally, "What the devil shall 
I do ? " He had no sooner spoken than a Gentleman in Black 
made his appearance, whose authentic portrait Mr. Cruikshank 
has had the honor to paint. This gentleman produced a black- 
edged book out of a black bag, some black-edged papers tied 
up with black crape, and sitting down familiarly opposite M. 
Desonge, began conversing with him on the state of his affairs. 

It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. 
M. Desonge was induced by the gentleman to sign his name to 
one of the black-edged papers, and found himself at the close 
of the conversation to be possessed of an unlimited command 
of capital. This arrangement completed, the Gentleman in 
Black posted (in an extraordinary rapid manner) from Paris to 
London, there found a young English merchant in exactly the 
same situation in which M. Desonge had been, and concluded 
a bargain v.ith the Briton of exactly the same nature. 

The book goes on to relate how these young men spent the 
money so miraculously handed over to them, and how both, 
when'the period drew near that was to witness the performance 



CFA)RGE CRClKSI/AiVK. ■ gif) 

of their part of the bargain, grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so 
absolutely dishonorable as to seek for every means of breakinir 
through their agreement. The Englishman living in a country 
where the lawyers are more astute than any other lawyers" ni 
the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn ; 
whose name, as we cannot find it in the " Law List," we presume 
to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the 

devil i Lord very likely ; we shall not give his name, but 

let every reader of this Review fill up the blank according to 
his own fancy, and on comparing it with the copy purchased by 
his neighbors, he will find that fifteen out of twenty have -writ- 
ten down the same honored name. 

Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment 
of his bond. The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to 
consult, the Black Gentleman foolishly thinking that he could 
act as his own counsel, and fearing no attorney alive. But mark 
the superiority of British law, and see how the black pettifog- 
ger was defeated. 

Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into 
Chancery, and his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, 
refused to move a step farther in the matter. 

And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his 
friend's escape, became anxious to be free from his own rash 
engagements. Lie employed the same counsel who had been 
successful in the former instance, but the Gentleman in Black 
was a great deal wiser by this time, and whether M. Desonge 
escaped, or whether he is now in that extensive place which is 
paved with good intentions, we shall not say. Those wdio. are 
anxious to know had better purchase the book wherein all these 
interesting matters are duly set down. There is one more 
diabolical picture in our budget, engraved by Mr. Thompson, 
the same dexterous artist who has 'rendered the former diab- 
leries so well. 

We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first 
of the en2:ravers to whom Cruikshank's desi2:ns have been en- 
trusted ; and next to him (if we may be allowed to make such 
arbitrary distinctions) we may place Mr. Williams ; and the 
reader is not possibly aware of the immense difficulties to be 
overcome in the rendering of these little sketches, which, traced 
by the designer in a few hours, require weeks' labor from the 
engraver. Mr. Cruikshank has not been educated in the regular 
schools of drawing (very luckily for him, as we think), and con- 
sequently has had to make a manner for himself, which is quite 
unlike that of any other draftsman. There is nothing in the 



620 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

least mechanical about it ; to produce his peculiar effects he 
uses his own particular lines, which are queer, free, fantastical, 
and must be followed in all their infinite twists and vagaries by 
the careful tool of the engraver. Those three lovely heads, for 
instance, imagined out of the rinds of lemons, are worth exam- 
ining, not so much for the jovial humor and wonderful variety 
of feature exhibited- in these darling countenances as for the 
engraver's part of the work. See the infinite delicate cross- 
lines and hatchings which he is obliged to render ; let him go, 
not a hair's breadth, but the hundredlh part of a hair's breadth, 
beyond the given line, and Xh&feelbig of it is' ruined. He re- 
ceives these little dots and specks, and fantastical quirks of the 
pencil, and cuts away with a little knife round each, not too 
much nor too little. Antonio's pound of flesh did not puzzle 
the Jew so much ; and so well does the engraver succeed at 
last, that we never remember to have met with a single artist 
who did not vow that the wood-cutter had utterly ruined his 
design. 

Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the 
first engravers in point of rank ; however, the regulations of 
professional precedence are certainly very difificult, and the 
rest of their brethren we shall not endeavor to class. Why 
should the artists who executed the cuts of the adniirable 
" Three Courses " yield \\i& pas to any one ? 

There, for instance, is any engraving by Mr. Landells, 
nearly as good in our opinion as the very best wood-cut that 
ever was made after Cruikshank, and curiously happy in ren- 
dering the artist's peculiar manner : this cut does not come 
from the facetious publications which we have consulted ; but 
is a contribution by Mr. Cruikshank to an elaborate and 
splendid botanical work upon the Orchidaceae of Mexico, by 
Mr. Bateman. M. Bateman despatched some extremely choice 
roots of this valuable plant to a friend in England, who, on the 
arrival of the case, consigned it to his gardener to unpack. 
A great deal of anxiety with regard to the contents was 
manifested b}^ all concerned, but on the lid of the box being 
removed, there issued from it three or four fine specimens of 
the enormous Blatta beetle that had been preying upon the 
plants during the voyage ; against these the gardeners, the 
grooms, the porters, and the porters' children, issued forth in 
arms, and this scene the artist has immortalized. 

We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruik- 
shank has depicted Irish character and Cockney character ; 
English country character is quite as faithfully delineated in 



GEORGE CKUIKSHANK. 62 1 

the person of the stout porteress and her children, and of the 
'' Chawbacon " with the shovel, on whose face is written "Zum- 
merzetsheer." Chawbacon appears in another plate, or else 
Chawbacon's brother. He has come up to Lunnan, and is 
looking about him at raaces. 

How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have 
just been examining ! They hang about the purlieus of the 
metropolis ; Brook Green, Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Good- 
wood, are their haunts. They visit London professionally once 
a year, and that is at the time of Bartholomew fair. How one 
may speculate upon the different degrees of rascality, as ex- 
hibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and from little 
histories for these worthies, charming Newgate romances, such 
as have been of late the fashion ! Is any man so blind that he 
cannot see the exact face that is writhing under the thimble- 
rigged hero's hat ? Like Timanthes of old, our artist ex 
presses great passions without the aid of the human counte- 
nance. There is another specimen — a street row of inebriated 
bottles. Is there any need of having a face after this .'' " Come 
on ! " says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat 
on one ear — " Come on ! has any man a mind to tap me ? " 
Claret-bottle is a little, screwed (as one may see by his legs), 
but full of gayety and courage ; not so that stout, apoplectic 
Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against the wall, and has his 
hand upon his liver : the fellow hurts himself with smoking, 
that is clear, and is as sick as sick can be. See, Port is making 
away from the storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water. 
Against these, awful in their white robes, the sober watchmen 
come. 

Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite 
clearly, as in the thimblerig group ; or he can do without faces 
altogether ; or he can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a 
gentleman out of any given object — a beautiful Irish physi- 
ognomy being moulded upon a keg of whiskey ; and a jolly 
English countenance frothing out of a pot of ale (with the 
spirit of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay) 5 
while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a 
mushroom peer. Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a 
living head, body, and legs out of steel or tortoise-sheil, as in 
the case of the vivacious pair of spectacles that are jockeying 
the nose of Caddy Cuddle. 

Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very 
much with steel engraving, and the consequences of that 
lucky invention have been, that his plates are now sold b;y 



62 2 CRITICAL RECIEIVS. 

thousands, 'where they could only be produced by hundreds be- 
fore. He has made many a bookseller's and author's fortune 
(we trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own). 
Twelve admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious 
little publication, the Comic Almanac, have gained for it a sale, 
as we hear, of nearly twenty thousand copies. The idea of 
the work was novel. ; there was, in the first number especially, 
a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs were so 
admirable that the Almamic at once became a vast favorite 
with the public, and has so remained ever since. 

Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic 
wood-cut, accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicum 
that appears in this and other almanacs. There is one that 
hints in pretty clear terms that with the Reform of Municipal 
Corporations the ruin of the great Lord Mayor of London is 
at hand. His lordship is meekly going to dine at an eight- 
penny ordinary, — his giants in pawn, his men in armor dwin- 
dled to '' one poor knight," his carriage to be sold, his stalwart 
aldermen vanished, his sheriffs, alas ! and alas ! in jail ! An- 
other design shows that Rigdum, if a true, is also a moral and 
instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or rather in a vision; 
the cunning demon. Speculation, blowing a thousand bright 
bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, 
a knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has 
coiled safe round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, 
money and all ; the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, 
he had corn to spare) ; his faithful dog is bolting his leg of 
mutton — nay, a thief has gotten hold of his very candle, and 
there, by way of moral, is his ale-pot, which looks and winks 
in his face, and seems to say, O Bull, all this is froth, and a 
cruel satirical picture of a certain rustic who had a goose that 
laid certain golden eggs, which goose the rustic slew in expec- 
tation of finding all the eggs at once. This is goose and sage 
too, to borrow the pun of " learned Doctor Gill ; " but we 
shrewdly suspect that Mr. Cruikshank is becoming a little con- 
servative in his notions. 

We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we 
still fondly endeavor to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, 
must be spoken by the best friends at last, and so good-by, 
brave wood-cuts : we feel quite a sadness in coming to the last 
of our collection. 

In the earlier numbers of the Comic Alma?iac all the man- 
ners and customs of Londoners that would afford food for fun 
were noted down ; and if during the last two years, the mys- 



CEORCJ-: CK i 'I A 'SIIAXK. 



623 



terious personage who, under the title of '' Rigdum Funnidos/' 
compiles this ephemeris, has been compelled to resort to ro- 
mantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the great 
metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover 
new worlds in the cloud-land of fancy. The character of Mr. 
Stubbs, who made his appearance in the Ahna?iac for 1839, 
had, we think, great merit, although his adventures were 
somewhat of too tragical a description to provoke pure 
laughter. 

We should be glad to devote a few pages to the '' Illustra 
tions of Time,"' the " Scraps and Sketches," and the "Illustra- 
tions of Phrenology," which are among the most famous of our 
artist's publications ; but it is very difficult to find new terms 
of praise, as find them one must, when reviewing Mr. Ouik- 
shank's publications, and more difficult still (as the reader of 
this notice will no doubt have perceived for himself long since ) 
to translate his design into words, and go to the printer's box 
for a description of all that fun and humor which the artist can 
produce by a few skilful turns of his needle. A famous ar- 
ticle upon the " Illustrations of Time " appeared some dozen 
years since in B/ack7uood''s Magazine, of which the conductors 
have always been great admirers of our artist, as became men 
of honor and genius. To these grand qualities do not let it be 
supposedthat we are laying claim, but, thank heaven, Cruik- 
shank's humor is so good and benevolent that any man must 
love it, and on this score we may speak as well as another. 

Then^'there are the '' Greenwich Hospital " designs, which 
must not be passed over. " Greenwich Hospital " is a hearty, 
good-natured book, in the Tom Dibdin school, treating of the 
virtues of British tars, in approved nautical language. They 
maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, they go put in brigs and take 
frigates, they relieve women in distress, and are yard-arm and 
yard-arming, athwart-hawsing, marlinspiking, binnacling, and 
helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen invariably do, in novels, on 
the stage, and doubtless on board ship. This we cannot take 
upon us to say, but the artist, like a true Englishman, as he is, 
loves dearly these brave guardians of Old England, and chron- 
icles their rare or fanciful exploits with the greatest good-will. 
Let any one look at the noble head of Nelson in the " Family 
Library," and tliey will, we are sure, think with us that the 
designer must have felt and loved what he drew. There are 
to this abridgment of Southey's admirable book many more 
cuts after Gruikshank ; and about a dozen pieces by the same 
hand will he found in a work equally popular, Lockh art's eX' 



62 4 CRIlrCAL REVIEWS. 

cellent " Life of Napoleon." Among these the retreat from 
Moscow is very fine ; the Mamlouks most vigorous, furious, 
and barbarous, as they should be. At the end of these three 
volumes Mr. Cruikshank's contributions to the *• Family Li- 
brary " seem suddenly to have ceased. 

We are not at all disposed to undervalue the works and 
genius of Mr. Dickens, and we are sure that he would admit as 
readily as any man the wonderful assistance that he has derived 
from the artist who has given us the portraits of his ideal per 
sonages, and made them familiar to all the world. Once seen, 
these figures remain impressed on the memory, which otherwise 
would have had no hold upon them, and the heroes and hero- 
ines of Boz become personal acquaintances with each of us. 
Oh, that Hogarth could have illustrated Fielding in the same 
way ! and fixed down on paper those grand figures of Parson 
Adams, and Squire Allworthy, and the great Jonathan Wild. 

AVith regard to the modern romance of " Jack Sheppard," 
in which the latter personage makes a second appearance, it 
seems to us that Mr. Cruikshank really created the tale, and 
that Mr. Ainsworth, as it were, only put words to it. Let any 
reader of the novel think over it for a while, now that it is some 
months since he has perused and laid it down — let him think, 
and tell us what he remembers of the tale ? George Cruik- 
shank's pictures — always George Cruikshank's pictures. The 
storm in the Thames, for instance : all the author's labored 
description of that event has passed clean away — we have only 
before the mind's eye the fine plates of Cruikshank : the poor 
wretch cowering under the bridge arch, as the waves come 
rushing in, and the boats are whirling away in the drift" of the 
great swollen black waters. And let any man look at that 
second plate of the murder on the Thames, and he must ac- 
knowledge how much more brilliant the artist's description is 
than the writer's, and what a real genius for the terrible as well 
as for the ridiculous the former has ; how awful is the gloom 
of the old bridge, a few lights glimmering from the houses here 
and there, but not so as to be refiected on the water at all, 
which is too turbid and raging : a great heavy rack of clouds 
goes sweeping over the bridge, and men with flaring torches, 
the murderers, are borne away with the stream. 

The author requires many pages to describe the fury of the 
storm, which Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, 
he has to prepare you with the something inexpressibly melan- 
choly in sailing on a dark night upon the Thames : " the ripple 
of the v/ater," '• the darkling current," '' the indistinctively seen 



GEORGE CRUIKSHAiVK. 625 

craft," " the solemn shadows " and other phenomena visible on 
rivers at night are detailed (with not unskilful rhetoric) in order 
to bring the reader into a proper frame of mind for the deeper 
gloom and horror which is to ensue. Then follow pages of 
d\:scription. " As Rowland sprang to the helm, and gave the 
si ^nal for pursuit, a war like a volley of ordnance was heard 
aloft, and the wind again burst its bondage. A moment before, 
the surface of the stream was as black as ink. It was now 
w'litening, hissing, and seething, like an enormous cauldron, 
'i'he blast once more swept over the agitated river, whirled off 
the sheets of foam, scattered them far and wide in rain-drops, 
and left the raging torrent blacker than before. Destruction 
everywhere marked the course of the gale. Steeples toppled 
and towers reeled beneath its fury. All was darkness, horror, 
confusion, ruin. Men fled from their tottering habitations and 
returned to them, scared by greater danger. The end of the 
world seemed at hand. * * * 'plie hurricane had now 
reached its climax. The blast shrieked, as if exulting in its 
wrathful mission. Stunning and continuous, the din seemed 
almost to take away the power of hearing. He who had faced 
the gale would have been instantly stifled,^'' &c., &c. See with 
what a tremendous war of words (and good loud words too ; 
Mr. Ainsworth's description is a good and spirited one) the 
author is obliged to pour in upon the reader before he can 
effect his purpose upon the latter, and inspire him with a proper 
tCiTor. The painter does it at a glance, and old Wood's 
dilemma in the midst of that tremendous storm, with the little 
infant at his bosom, is remembered afterwards, not from the 
words, but from the visible image of them that the artist has 
left us. 

It woulcl not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the 
whole of the " Jack Sheppard " plates, which are among the 
most finished and the most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's per- 
formances, and say a word or two concerning them. Let us 
begin with finding fault with No. i, '' ]Mr. Wood offers to adopt 
little Jack Sheppard." A poor print, on a poor subject ; the 
figure of the woman not as carefully designed as it might be, 
aid the expression of the eyes (not an uncommon fault with 
om* artist) much caricatured. The print is cut up, to use the 
artist's phrase, by the number of accessories which the engraver 
haj tliought proper, after the author's elaborate description, 
elaborately to reproduce. The plate of " Wild discovering 
Darrell in the loft" is admirable — ghastly, terrible, and the 
treatment of it extraordinarily skilful, minute, and bold. 'J'he 

40 



tzh CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

intricacies 6f the tile-work, 'and the mysterious twinkling of 
light among the beams, are excellently felt and rendered ; and 
one sees here, as in the two next plates of the storm and mur- 
der, what a fine eye the artist has, what a skilful hand, and 
what a sympathy for the wild and dreadful. As a mere imita- 
tion of nature, the clouds and the bridge in the murder picture 
m:iy be examined by. painters who make far higher pretensions 
than Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship they arc 
equally 'good, the manner quite unaffected, the effect produced 
without any violent contrast, the whole scene evidently well 
and philosophically arranged in the artist's brain, before he 
began to put it upon copper. 

The famous drawing of ^'Jack carving the name on the 
1:)eam," which has been transferred to half the play-biils in town, 
is tjverloaded with accessories, as the first plate ; but they are 
much better arranged than in the last-named engraving, and 
do, not injure the effect of the principal figure. Remark, too, 
t'.ie conscientiousness of the artist, and that shrewd pervading 
idea oiform which is one of his principal characteristics. Jack 
is surrounded by all sorts of implements of his profession ; he 
stands on a regular carpenter's table : away in the shadow 
under it lie shavings and a couple of carpenter's hammers. The 
glue-pot, the mallet, the chisel-handle, the planes, the saws, the 
hon.c with its cover, and the other paraphernalia are all rep- 
resented with extraordinary accuracy and forethought. The 
man's mind has retained the exact drawing of all these minute 
objects (unconsciously perhaps to himself), but we can see with 
what keen eyes he must go through the world, and what a fund 
of facts (as such a knowledge of the shape of objects is in his 
profession) this keen student of nature has stored away in his 
iDrain. In the next plate, where Jack is escaping from his 
mistress, the figure of that lady, one of the deepest of the 
■jo.')'>:'(i)-(i'.. Strikes us as disagreeable and unrefined ; that of 
Winifred is, on the contrar}^, very pretty and graceful , and 
Jack's puzzled, slinking look must not be forgotten. All the 
accessories are good, and the apartment has a snug, cosy air ; 
which is not remarkable, except that it shows how faithfully the 
designer has performed his work, and how curiously he has en- 
tered into all particulars of the subject. 

Master Thames Darrell, the handsome young man of the 
book is, in Mr. Ouikshank's portraits of him, no favorite of 
ours. . The lad seems to wish to make up for the natural in- 
:,ignificance of his face by frownin-^^ on all occasions most por- 
♦^entously. This figure, borrowed from the compositor's desk, 



vf^ 



ijEOKui: Cnl'/ksr/AXk'. ■ 627 

will give a notion of what we mean. Wild's face is 

too violent for the great man of history (if we may 

1 call Fielding history), but this is in consonance with 

the ranting, frowning, braggadocio character that Mr. 

Ainsworth has given him. 

The " Interior of Willesden Church " is excellent as a com- 
position, and a piece of artistical workmanship ; the groups are 
well arranged ; and the figure of Mrs. Sheppard looking around 
alarmed, as her son is robbing the dandy Kneebone, is charming, 
simple, and unaffected. Not so " Mrs. Sheppard ill in bed," 
whose face is screwed up to an expression vastly too tragic. 
The little glimpse of the church seen through the open door of 
the room is very beautiful and poetical : it is in such small 
hints that an artist especially excels ; they are the morals which 
he loves to append to his stories, and are always appropriate 
and welcome. The boozing ken is not to our liking ; Mrs. 
Sheppard is there with her horrified eyebrows again. Why this 
exaggeration — is it necessary for the public ? We think not, 
or if they require such excitement, let our artist, like a true 
painter as he is, teach them better things.* 

The " Escape from Willesden Cage " is excellent ; the 
" Burglary in Wood's house '" has not less merit ; " Mrs. Shep- 
pard in Bedlam," a ghastly picture indeed, is finely conceived, 
Init not, as we fancy, so carefully executed ; it would be better 
for a little more careful drawing in the female figure. 

" Jack sitting for his picture," is a ver}^ pleasing group, and 
savors of the manner of Hogarth, who is introduced in the 
company. The " Murder of Trenchard " must be noticed too 
as remarkable for the effect and terrible vigor which the artist 
has given to the scene. The " Willesden Churchyard " has 
great merit too, but the gems of the book are the little vig- 
nettes illustrating the escape from Newgate. Here, too, much 
anatomical care of drawing is not required ; the figures are so 
small that the outhne and attitude need only to be indicated, 
and the designer has produced a series of figures quite- remark- 
able for reality and poetry too. There are no less than ten cf 
Jack's feats so described by Mr. Cruikshank. (Let us say a 

* A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be very cautious in repeatinr; 
his stories) gave the writer a good illustration of the philosophy of exaggeration. Mr. - — 
was once behind the scenes at the Opera when the scene-shifters were preparing for the bal- 
let. Flora v.'as to sleep imder a bush, whereon were growing a number of roses, ai;cl 
amidst which was fluttering a gay covey of butterflies. In size the roses exceeded the mo^.t 
expansive sun-flnwers, and the butterflies were as large as cocked hats ;■ -the scene-shiffr 

explained to Mr. , who asked the reason why everything was sn magnified, that t''" 

galleries cnuld never see the objects unless they w-eje enormously exaggerated. How niai-^j 
of our writers and designers work for the galleries ? 



628 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

word hete in praise of the excellent manner in which the 
author has carried us through the adventure.) Here is Jack 
clattering up the chimney, now peering into the lonely red 
room, now^ opening "the door between the red room and the 
chapel." What a wild, fierce, scared look he has, the young 
ruffian, as cautiously he steps in, holding light his bar of iron. 
You can see by his face how his heart is beating ! If any one 
were there ! but no ! And this is a very fine characteristic of 
the prints, the extreme loneliness of them all. Not a soul is 
there to disturb him — woe to him who should — and Jack drives 
in the chapel gate, and shatters' down the passage door, and 
there you have him on the leads. Up he goes ! it is but a 
spring of a few feet from the blanket, and he .is gone — abiit^ 
evasif, erupit ! Air. Wild must catch him again if he can. 

We must not forget to mention " Oliver Twist," and Mr. 
Cruikshank's famous designs to that work."* The sausage 
scene at Fagin's, Nancy seizing the boy ; that capital piece of 
humor, Mr. Bumble's courtship, which is even better in Cruik- 
shank's version than in Boz's exquisite account of the inter- 
view ; Sykes's farewell to the dog ; and the Jew, — the dreadful 
Jew^ — that Cruikshank drew ! What a fine touching picture of 
melancholy desolation is that of Sykes and the dog ! The 
poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is stiff and 
formal ; but in this case the faults, if faults they be, of execu- 
tion rather add to than diminish the effect of the picture • it 
has a strange, wild, drear)', broken-hearted look ; we fancy we 
see the landscape as it must have appeared to Sykes, when 
ghastly and with bloodshot eyes he looked at it. As for the 
Jew in the dungeon, let us say nothing of it — what can we say 
to describe it ? What a fine homely poet is the man who can 
produce this little world of mirth or woe for us ! Does he 
elaborate his effects by slow process of thought, or do they 
come to him by instinct 'i Does the painter ever arrange in his 
brain an image so complete, that he afterwards can copy it 
exactly on the canvas, or does the hand work in spite of him ? 

A great deal of this random work of course every artist has 
done in his time ; many men produce effects of which they 
never dreamed, and strike off excellences, haphazard, which 
gain for them reputation ; but a fine quality in Mr. Cruikshank, 
the quality of his success, as we have said before, is the extraor- 
dinary earnestness and good faith with which he executes all he 
attempts — the ludicrous, the polite, the low, the terrible. In 

*■ Or his n"\v worl;. " Tlr- Tower of London," which promiscii even to 6i:»^>abi Mr 
Cruikshank'i former productions. 



GEORCE CRC IKS HANK'. 629 

the second of these he often, in our fancy, fails, nis figures 
lacking elegance and descending to caricature; but there is 
somethmg fine in this too : it is gco^l that he should iTiA, that 
he should have these honest naii'c. notions regarding the beau 
monde^ the characteristics of which a namby-pamby tea-party 
painter could hit off far better than he. He is a great deal too 
downright and manly to appreciate the flimsy delicacies of 
small society — you cannot expect a lion to roar you like any 
sucking dove, or frisk about a drawing-room like a lady's little 
spaniel. 

If then, in the course of his life and business, he has been 
occasionally obliged to imitate the ways of such small animals, 
he has done so, let us say it at once, clumsily, and like as a 
lion should. Many artists, we hear, hold his works rather 
cheap ; they prate about bad drawing, want of scientific knowl- 
edge ; — they would have something vastly more neat, regular, 
anatomical. 

Not one of the whole band most likely but can paint an 
Academy figure better than himself ; nay, or a portrait of an 
alderman's lady and family of children. But look down the 
list of the painters and tell us who are they ? How many 
among these men are poets (makers), possessing the faculty to 
create, the greatest among the gifts with which Providence has 
endowed the mind of man } Say how many there are, count 
up what they have done, and see what in the course of some 
nine-and-twenty years has been done by this indefatigable man. 

What amazing energetic fecundity do we find in him ! As 
a boy he began to fight for bread, has been hungry (twice a 
day we trust) ever since, and has been obliged to sell his wit 
for his bread week by week. And his wit, sterling gold as it 
is, will find no such purchasers as the fashionable painter's 
thin pinchbeck, who can live comfortably for six weeks, when 
paid for and painting a portrait, and fancies his mind prodigi- 
ously occupied all the while. There was an artist in Paris, an 
artist hairdresser, who used to be fatigued and take restoratives 
after inventing a new coiffure. By no such gentle operation of 
head-dressing has Cruikshank lived : time was (we are told so 
in print) when for a picture with thirty heads in it he was paid 
three guineas — a poor week's pittance, truly, and a dire week's 
labor. We make no doubt that the same labor would at 
present bring him twenty times the sum ; but whether it be ill- 
paid or well, what labor has Mr. Cruikshank's been ! Week 
b}- week, for thirty years, to produce something new ; some 
smiling offspring of painful labor, quite indejjendent and dis- 



630 CKITICAL REl'IKU'S. 

tinct froip its ten thousafhd jovial brethren ; in what hours ot 
sorrow and ill-health to be told by the world, '' Make us laugh 
or you starve — Give us fresh fun ; we have eaten up the old 
and are hungry." And all this has he been obliged to do — to 
wring laughter day by day, sometimes, perhaps, out of want, 
often certainly from ill-health or depression — to keep the iire 
of his brain perpetually alight : for the greedy public will give 
it no leisure to cool. This he has done and done well. He 
has told a thousand truths in as many strange and fascinatin<; 
ways ; he has given a thousand new and jDleasant thoughts to 
millions of people ; he has neve^ used his wit dishonestly ; he 
has never,'in all the exuberance of his frolicsome humor, caused 
a single painful or guilty blush : how little do we think of the 
extraordinary power of this man, and how ungrateful we are 
to him ! 

Here, as we are come round to the charge of ingratitude, 
the starting-post from which we set out, perhaps we had better 
conclude. The reader will perhaps wonder at the high-flown 
tone m which we speak of the services and merits of an indi- 
vidual, whom he considers a humble scraper on steel, that is 
wonderfully popular already. But none of us remember all the 
benefits we owe him ; they have come one by one, one driving 
out the memory of the other . it is only when we come to ex- 
amine them altogether, as the writer has done, who has a pile 
of books on the table before him — a heap of personal kind- 
nesses from George Cruikshank (not presents, if you please, 
for we bought, borrowed, or stole every one of them) — that Ave 
feel what we owe him. Look at one of Mr. Cruikshank's. 
works, and we pronounce him an excellent humorist, • Look at 
all : his reputation is increased b}'- a kind of geometrical pro- 
gression ; as a whole diamond is a hundred times more valu- 
able than the hundred splinters into which it might be broken 
would be. A fine rough English diamond is this about which 
we have been writing. 



JOHN LEECirs PICTURES. 03 1 



JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND 
CHARACTER."^ 

We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite 
respectable, old fogeyfied times, remember amongst othet 
amusements which we had as children the pictures at which 
we were permitted to look. There was Boydell's Shakspeare, 
black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum Northcotes, 
straddling Fuselis ! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with 
starting muscles, rolling eyeballs,, and long pointing quivering 
fingers ; there was little Prmce Arthur (Northcote) crying, in 
white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes ; 
there was Hubert crying ; there was little Rutland being run 
through the poor little body by bloody Clifford ; there was 
Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning 
and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful 
to the present day) ; there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) wav- 
ing a torch, and dancing before a black background, — a melan- 
choly museum indeed. Smirke's delightful " Seven Ages " 
only fitfully relieved its general gloom. We did not like to 
inspect it unless the elders were present, and plenty of lights 
and company v/ere in the room. 

Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Lin wood's. Let 
the children of the present generation thank their stars that 
tragedy is put out of the way. Miss Lin wood's was worsted- 
work. Your grandmother or grandaunts took you there, and 
said the pictures were admirable. You saw "the Woodman " 
in worsted, with his axe and dog, trampling through the snow \ 
the snow bitter cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful : 
a gloomy piece, that made you shudder. There were large 
dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling warriors with 
limbs strongly knitted ; there was especially, at the end of a 
black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten any boy not 
born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and accustomed to them. 

Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the 
pleasing figures of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on 
the pale horse, used to impress us children. The tombs of 

* Reprinted from the Quarterly Re\';r~'.; No, lor, Dec. 1^5^, 1 y permission of Mr. 
John Murray. 



63 2 CRJ TIL \-l L R E 1 'IE I VS. 

Westminster Abbey, the v!?tilts at St. Paul's, the men in ar- 
mor at the Tower, frownins^ lerocior.sl}- out of tiieir helmets, 
and wielding their dreadiu! swords ; t!iat superhuman Queen 
Elizabeth at the end of the room, a livid sovereign, with glass 
eyes, a ruff, and a dirty satin petticoat, riding a horse covered 
with steel : who does not remember these sights in London in 
the consulship of Plancus ? and the wax-work in Fleet Street, 
not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose cliamber of death 
is gay and brilliant ; but a nice old gloomy waxwork, full of 
murderers ; and as a chief attraction, the Dead Baby and 
Princess Charlotte lying in state ? , " 

Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most part. 
Frank (dear old Frank !) had none ; nor the " Parent's Assist- 
ant ; " nor the ''Evenings at Home;" nor our copy of the 
"Ami des Enfans : " there were a few just at the end of the 
Spelling-Book ; besides the allegory at the beginning, of Edu- 
cation leading up Youth to the temple of Industry, where Dr. 
Dilworth and Professor Walkinghame stood with crowns of 
laurels. There were, we say, just a few pictures at the end of 
the Spelling-Book, little oval gray w^ood-cuts of Bewick's, mostly 
of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and the Shadow, and 
Brown, Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and little tights ; 
but for pictures, so to speak, what had we ? The rough old 
wood-blocks in the harlequin-backed fairy-books had served 
hundreds of years ; before 07ir Plancus, in the time of Prisons 
Plancus — in Queen Anne's time, who knows ? We were 
flogged at school ; we were fifty boys in our boarding-house, 
and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a cistern, with lumps 
of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and water. Are 
our sons ever flogged ? Have they not dressing-rooms, hair- 
oil, hip-baths, and Baden towels ? And what picture-books 
the young villains have I What have these children done that 
they should be so much happier than we were ? 

We had the " Arabian Nights " and Walter Scott, to be 
sure. Smirke's illustrations to the former are very fine. We 
did not know hovv^ good they were then ; but we doubt whether 
we did not prefer the little old " Miniature Library Nights " 
with frontispieces by Uwins ; for these books the pictures don't 
count. Every boy of imagination does his own pictures to 
Scott and the " Arabian Nights " best. 

Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for 
us children. There was Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax:" 
Doctor Syntax, in a fuzz-wig, on a'horsewdth legs like sausages, 
riding races, making love, frolicking with rosy exuberant dam- 



JOHN L EE CI I -S riC TURES. . 63 3 

sels. Those pictures were very funny, and that aquatnitinfi 
and the gay-colored plates very pleasant to witness ; but if wc 
could not read the poem in those days, could we digest it in 
this ? Nevertheless, apart from the text which we could nol 
master, we remember Doctor Syntax pleasantly, like those 
cheerful painted hieroglyphics in the Nineveh Court at Syden- 
ham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible stuff? give us 
the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their 
rideut horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who 
tumble gayly ofT the towers, or drown, smiling in the dimpling 
waters, amidst the anerithmon gelasma of the fish. 

After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, 
Jerry Hawthorn, and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded 
— a^ wondrous history indeed theirs was ! When the future 
student of our manners comes to look over the pictures and 
the writing of these queer volumes, what will he think of our 
socioty, customs, and language in the Consulship of Plancus 'i 
'' Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase applied to men of 
fashion and ton in Plancus's time : they were the brilliant pre- 
decessors of the " swell '" of the prese'nt period — brilliant, but 
somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed. The Corinthians 
were in the habit of drinking a great deal too much in Tom 
Cribb's parlor . they used to go and see " life " in the gin-shops ■. 
of nights, walking home (as well as they could), they used to 
knock down "Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with 
lanterns, guardians of the streets of Rome, Planco Consule. 
They perp'etrated a vast deal of boxing ; they put on the "muf- 
flers " in Jackson's rooms ; they " sported their prads " in the 
Ring in the Park ; they attended cock-fights, and were enlight- 
ened patrons of dogs and destroyers of rats. Besides these 
sports, the delassemens of gentlem.en mixing with the people, 
our patricians, of course, occasionally enjoyed the society of 
their own class. What a wonderful picture that used to be of 
Corinthian Tom dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's ' 
What a prodigious dress Kate wore ! With wdiat graceful 
abandon the pair flung their arms about as they swept through 
the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing round in 
their stars and uniforms ! You may still, doubtless, see the 
pictures at the British Museum, or find the volumes in the 
corner of some old country-house library. You are led to sup- 
pose that the English aristocracy of 1820 did dance and caper 
in that wav, and box and drink at Tom Cribb's, and knock 
down watchmen ; and the children of to-day, turning to their 
elders, mav sav, " Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress as 



6;^.\ CRITICAL REV I EM'S. 

that when 'you danced at Ahnack's ? There was very little oi 
it, grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill many watchmen when 
he was a young man, and frequent thieves' gin-shops, cock- 
fights and the ring, before you married him ? Did he used to 
talk the extraordinary slang and jargon which is printed in this 
book? He is very much changed. He seems a gentlemanly 
old bo}^ enough now." 

in the above-named consulate, when 7ve had grandfathers 
aliv^e, there would be in the old gentleman's library in the 
c:.'mtry two or three old mottled pprtfolios, or great swollen 
scrap-books of blue paper, full of' the comic prints of grand- 
papa's time, ere Plancus ever had the fasces borne before him. 
These prints were signed Gilra}-, Bunbury, Rowlandson, Wood- 
ward, and some actually George Cruikshank — for George is a 
\eteran now, and he took the etching needle in hand as a child. 
He caricatured '' Boney," borrowing not a little from Gilray in 
his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVHI, trying on 
Boney's boots. Before the centurx' was actually in its teens 
we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the public. 

In those great colored prints in our grandfathers' portfolios 
in the library, and in some other apartments of the house, 
where the caricatures used to be pasted in those days, v/e found 
things quite beyond our comprehension. Boney was represent- 
ed as a fierce dwarf, with goggle eyes, a huge laced hat and 
tricolored plume, a crooked sabre, reeking with blood : a little 
demon revelling in lust, murder, massacre. John Bull was 
shown kicking him a good deal : indeed he was prodigiously 
kicked all through that series of pictures ; by Sidney Smith 
and our brave allies the gallant I'urks ; by the excellent and 
patriotic Spaniards ; by the amiable and indignant Russians, 
— all nations had boots at the service of poor Master Boney. 
How Pit used to defy him ! How good old George, King of 
Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver-Boney, sailing about in his 
tank to make sport for their Majesties ! This little fiend, this 
beggar's brat, cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he \\:as 
(we remember in those old portfolios; pictures representing 
Boney and his family in rags, gnawing raw bones ni a Corsican 
hut ; Boney murdering the sick at Jaffa ; Boney with a hookah 
and a large turban, having adopted the Turkish religion, &^c.) 
— this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had some devoted 
friends in England, according to the Gilray chronicle, — a set 
of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness 
in general, like their French friend. In the pictures these men 
were all represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The miscreants 



yo/L\- LEECH S FIC7-URES. 635 

got into power at one time, and, if we remember right, were 
called the Broad-backed Administration. One with shaggy 
eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute ringleader of the ras- 
cals, was, it appears, called Charles James Fox ; another mis- 
creant, with a btotched countenance, was a certain Sheridan ; 
other imps Were hight Erskine, Norfolk Qockey of), Moira, 
Henry Petty. As in our childish innocence we used to lock 
at these demons, now sprawling and tipsy in their cups . now 
scaling heaven, from which the angelic Pitt hurled them down ; 
now cursing the light (their atrocious ringleader Fox was re 
presented with hairy cloven feet, and a tail and horns) ; now 
kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discomfited by Pitt and 
t!ie other good angels : we hated these vicious wretches, as 
good children should ; we were on the side of Virtue and Pitt 
and Grandpapa. But if our sist,ers wanted to look at the port- 
folios, the good old grandfather used to hesitate. There were 
some prints among them very old indeed ; some that girls could 
not understand ; some that boys, indeed, had best not sec. We 
swiftly turn over those prohibited pages. Plow many of them 
there were in the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, generous book 
of old English humor ! 

How savage the satire was — how fierce the assault — what 
garbage hurled at opponents — what foul blows were hit — what 
language of Billingsgate flung ! Fancy a party in a country- 
house now looking over Woodward's facetiae or some of the 
Gilray comicalities, or the slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson ! 
Whilst we live we mustjaugh, and have folks to make us laugh. 
We cannot afford to lose Satyr with his pipe and dances and 
gambols. But we have washed, combed, clothed, and taught 
the rogue good manners : or rather, let us say, he has learned 
them himself ; for he is of nature soft and kindly, and he has 
put aside his mad pranks and tipsy habits ; and frolicsome 
always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten into shame 
by the pure presence of our women and the sweet conlidir.g 
smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial 
satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous 
designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see. by liis 
own hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whisk- 
ers, in the Illustrated Lo?idoii Neivs the other day ? There was 
a prim in that paper of an assemblage of teetotallers in " Sad- 
ler's Well's Theatre," and we straightway recognized the old 
Roman hand — the old Roman's of the time of Plancus — George 
Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll faces and 
shoes, and sliort trousers, and figures of 1S20 sure enough. 



636 CRITICAL REVIEWS 

And there was George (^o has taken to the water-doctrine, as 
all the world knows) handing some teetotalleresses over a plank 
to the table where the pledge was being administered. How 
often has George drawn that picture of Cruikshank ! Where 
haven't we seen it ? How fine it was, facing^the efiEigy of Mr. 
Ains\Yorth in AinswortJis Magazine when George illustrated 
that periodical ! How grand and severe he stands in that de- 
sign in G. C.'s " Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged 
like St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the 
nose ! The collectors of George's etchings — oh the charming 
etchings! — oh the dear old " Qerman Popular Tales!" — the 
capital " Points of Humor " — the delightful " Phrenology " and 
'' Scrap-books," of the good time, our time — Plancus's in fact ! 
■ — the collectors of the Georgian etchings, we say, have at least 
a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we remember him in 
his favorite Hessian boots in " Tom and Jerry " itse!f ; and in 
wood-cuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has rather de- 
"serted satire and comedy of late years, having turned his atten- 
tion to the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having confessed 
our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful to the 
historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. May re- 
spect, and length of days, and comfortable repose attend the 
bra\-e, honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, humorist, moralist ! 
[t was he first who brought English pictorial humor and 
children acquainted. Our young people and their fathers and 
mothers owe him many a pleasant hour and harmless laugh. 
Is there no way in which the country could acknowledge the 
long services and brave career of such 'a friend and benefactor? 

Since George's time humor has been converted. Comus 
and his wicked satyrs and leering fauns have disajDj^eared, and 
fied into the lowest haunts ; and Comus's lady (if she had a 
taste for humor, which may be doubted) might take up our 
funny picture-books without t]:c slightest precautionary squeam- 
ishnei:s. • What can be purer than the c::r,rrp.ing fancies of 
Ricliard Doyle .'' In all Mr. Punch's 1-uge galleries can't we 
walk as safely as through Miss Pinkerton's school-rooms ? 
.'Vnd as we look at Mr. Punch's pictures, at the IJIust rated News 
pictures, at all the pictures in the book-shop windows at this 
Christmas season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy 
again;:t the youngsters — they arc too v^-ell off. Why hadn't wt 
picture-books? Why were wc Hogged so? A plague on the 
hctors and their rods in ib.c time of Phmcus ! 

\\v\ now, after t!iis rr/ivbiing preface, we are arrived at the 
;:ubject in liand — Mr. Jolui Leech and his " Pictures of Life and 



•yo/fN LEECirS PICri'RES 



630 



Character," in the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is 
better than plum-cake at Christmas. It is an enduring plum- 
cake, which you may eat and which you may slice and deliver 
to your friends ; and to which,' having cut it, you may come 
again and welcome, from year's end to year's end. In the 
frontispiece you see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his 
gallery — a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable gentle- 
man, in a white neck-cloth, and a polite evening costume — 
smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his 
pleasant drawings, taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. 
Mr. Punch has very good reason to smile at the work and be 
satisfied with the artist. Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and 
some kindred humorists, with pencil and pen have served Mr. 
Punch admirably. Time was, if we remember Mr. P's history 
rightly, that he did not wear silk stockings nor well-made clothes 
(the little dorsal irregularity in his figure is almost an ornament 
now, so excellent a tailor has he). He was of humble begin- 
nings. It is said he kept a ragged little booth, which he put 
up at corners of streets ; associated with beadles, policemen, 
his own ugly wife (whom he treated most scandalously), and 
persons in a low station of life ; earning a precarious livelihood 
by the cracking of wild jokes, the singing of ribald songs, and 
halfpence extorted from passers-by. He is the Satyric genius 
we spoke of anon : he cracks his jokes still, for satire must 
live; but he is combed, washed, neatly clothed, and perfectly 
presentable. He goes into the very best company ; he keeps 
a stud at Melton -, he has a moor in Scotland ; he rides in the 
Park ; has his stall at the Opera; is constantly dining out at 
clubs and in private society; and goes every night in the sea- 
son to balls and parties, where you see the most beautiful 
women possible. He is welcomed amongst his new friends the 
great ; though, like the good old English gentleman of the 
song, he does not forget the small. He pats the heads of 
'street boys and girls ; relishes the jokes of Jack the coster- 
monger and Bob the dustman : good-naturedly spies out Molly 
the cook flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid as 
she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to 
laugh at guardsmen, " plungers," and other military men ; and 
was until latter days very contemptuous in his behavior tow^ards 
Frenchmen. He has a natural antipathy to pomp, and swag- 
ger, and fierce demeanor. But now that the guardsmen are 
gone to war, and the dandies of "The Rag " — dandies no more 
— are batt'ing: like heroes at Balaklava and Inkermann * bv the 

* Tins was written m 1S54. 



638 CRITICAL RFA-fKWS. 

side of their heroic alUe^, Mr. Punch's laughter is changed to 
hearty respect and enthusiasm. It is not against courage and 
honor he wars : but this great moraUst — must it be owned ? 
— has some popular British prejudices, and these led him in 
peace time to laugh at soldiers and Frenchmen. If those 
hulking footmen who accompanied the carriages to the opening 
of Parliament the other day, would form a plush brigade, wear 
only gunpowder in their hair, and strike with their great canes 
on the enemy, Mr. Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, 
who meanwhile remains among uSj to all outward appearance 
regardless of satire, and calmiy consuming his five meals 
per diem. Against lawyers, beadies, bishops and clergy, and 
authorities, Mr, Punch is still rather bitter. At the time of the 
Papal aggression he was prodigiously angry ; and one of the 
chief misfortunes which happened to him at that period was 
that, through the \iolent opinions which he expressed regarding 
the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he lost the invaluable services, 
the graceful pencil, the harmless wit, the charming fancy of 
Mr. Doyle. Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the 
biographer of Jeames, the author of the "Snob Papers," re- 
signed his functions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon 
the present P^mperor of the French nation, whose anger Jeames 
thought It was unpatriotic to arouse. Mr. Punch parted with 
these contributors : he filled their places with others as good. 
The boys at the railroad stations cried Punch just as cheerily, 
and sold just as many numbers, after these events as before. 

There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet 
John Leech is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Pimch 
without Leech's pictures ! What would you give for it.'' The 
learned gentlemen who write the work must feel that, with- 
out him, it were as well left alone. Look at the rivals whom 
the popularity of Punch has brought into the field ; the direct 
imitators of Mr. Leech's manner — the artists with a manner of 
their own- — how inferior their pencils are to his in humor, in 
depicting the public manners, in arresting, amusing the nation. 
The truth, the strength, the free vigor, the kind humor, the 
John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are approached by no 
competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, a woman, 
a child ! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. What 
plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief 
contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem ! What 
famous thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how 
Briggs, on the back of them, scampers across country ! You 
see youth, strength, enjoyment, manliness in those drawings. 



JOHN LEECH- S PICTURES. 639 

and in none more so, to our thinking, than in the hundred 
pictures of children which this artist loves to design. Like a 
brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he becomes quite soft and 
tender with the little creatures, pats gently their little golden 
heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their ways, their 
sports, their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans terribles come 
home from Eton ; young Miss practising her first flirtation ; 
poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, or stag- 
gering under the \veight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as big 
as herself — all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet 
with kindness from this kind heart, and are watched with 
curious nicety by this amiable observer. 

We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a 
print which used to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spec- 
tators, and in which the Prince of Wales (his Royal Plighness 
was a Foxite then) was represented as sitting alone in a mag- 
nificent hall after a voluptuous meal, and using a great steel 
fork in the guise of a toothpick. Fancy the iirst young gentle- 
man living employing such a weapon in such a way ! The most 
elegant Prince of Europe engaged M-ith a two-pronged iron fork 
— the heir of Britannia with a bident ! The man of genius who 
drew that picture saw little of the society which he satirized and 
amused. Gilray watched public characters as they walked by 
the shop in St. James's Street, or passed through the lobby of 
the House of Commons. His studio was a garret, or little 
better ; his place of amusement a tavern-parlor, where his club 
held its nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. You 
could not have society represented by men to whom it was not 
familiar. When Gavarni came to England a few years since — 
one of the wittiest of men, one of the most brilliant and dex- 
terous of draughtsmen — he published a book of " Les Anglais," 
and his Anglais were all Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so 
long practised to observe Parisian life, could not perceive Eng- 
lish character. A social painter must be of the world which he 
depicts, and native to the manners which he portrays. 

Now% any one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see 
that the social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What 
comfortable little drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, what snug 
libraries we enter , what fine young-gentlemanly wags they are, 
those beautiful little dandies who wake up gouty old grandpapa 
to ring the bell ; who decline aunt's pudding and custards, 
saying that they will reserve themselves for an anchovy roast 
with the claret , who talk together in ballroom doors, where 
Fred whispers Charley — pointing to a dear little partner seven 



64.0 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

years old — '* I\Iy dear (*!harley, she has very much gone off; 
you should have seen that girl last season ! " Look well at 
everything appertaining to the economy of the famous Mr. 
Briggs : how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments are ! 
What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is 
(in the Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the 
sketches of the surrounding scenery) ! What a good stable he 
has, with a loose box for those celebrated hunters which he 
rides ! How pleasant, clean, and warm his breakfast-table 
looks ! What a trim little maid brings in the top-boots which 
horrify Mrs. B ! What a snug glressing-room he has, complete 
in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying on the 
delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire ! 
How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room : 
Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamjD ; Mamma 
and Grannie with their respective needleworks; the children 
clustering round a great book of prints — a great book of prints 
such as this before us, which, at this season, must make thou- 
sands of children happy by as many firesides ! The inner life 
of all these people is represented . Leech draws them as natur- 
ally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and 
stables. It is your house and mine ; we are looking at every- 
body's family circle. Our boys coming from school give them- 
selves such airs, the young scapegraces ! our girls, going to 
parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas — a social history 
of London in the middle of the nineteenth century. As such, 
future students — lucky they to have a book so pleasant — will 
regard these pages ; even the mutations of fashion they may 
follow here if they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an 
eye for tailory and millinery as for horse-flesh. How they 
change those cloaks and bonnets. How we have to pay mil- 
liners' bills from year to year ! Where are those prodigious 
chritelaines of 1850 which no lady could be without ? Where 
those charming waistcoats, those " stunning " waistcoats, which 
our young girls used to wear a few brief seasons back, and 
which cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of " La Mode," to 
ask Ellen for her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior by 
this time, very likely facing the enemy at Inkerman ; and 
pretty Ellen, and that love of a sister of hers, are married and 
happy, let us hope, superintending one of those delightful 
nursery scenes which our artists depicts with such tender humor. 
Fortunate artist, indeed ! You see he must have been bred at 
a good public school ; that he has ridden many a good horse 
in his day ; paid, no doubt, out of his own purse for the originals 



JOIIX LEF.arS PICTURES. 641 

of some of those lovely caps and bonnets ; and watched pa- 
ternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and slumbers of his favorite 
little people. 

As you look at the dravv'ings, secrets come out of them, — • 
private jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the author for your 
special delectation. How remarkably, for instance, lias ^.ir. 
Leech observed the hair-dressers of the present a^re ! Look- 
at " Mr. Tongs," whom that hideous old bald woman, who ties 
on her bonnet at the glass, informs that " she has used tlie 
whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair con^.es off yet." 
You can see the bear's-grease not only on Tongs' head but on 
his hands, which he is clapping clammily together. Remark 
him who is telling his client "there is cholera in the hair ; " 
and that lucky rogue whom the young lady bids to cut off " a 
long thick piece " — for somebody, doubtless. All these men 
are different, and delightfully natural and absurd. Why should 
hair-dressing be an absurd profession .? 

The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play 
in Mr. Leech's pieces : his admirable actors use them with 
perfect naturalness. Look at Betty, putting the urn down ; at 
cook, laying her hands on the kitchen table, whilst her police- 
man grumbles at the cold meat. They are cook's and house- 
maid's hands without mistake, and not without a certain beauty 
too. The bald old lady, who is tying her bonnet at Tongs', 
has hands which you see are trembling. Watch the hngers of 
the two ol.d harridans who are talking scandal : for what long 
years past they have pointed out holes in their neighbors' 
dresses and mud on their flounces. " Here's a go ! I've lost 
my diamond ring." As the dustman utters this pathetic cry, 
and looks at his hand, you burst out laughing. These are 
among the little points of humor. One could indicate hun- 
dreds of such as one turns over the pleasant pages. 

There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who 
w^ears little tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and panta- 
loons, smokes cigars on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane 
in the streets, struts about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs, 
S. an immense woman, whom Snob nevertheless bullies), who 
is a favorite abomination of Leech, and pursued by that savage 
humorist into a thousand of his haunts. There he is, choosing 
waistcoats at the tailor's — such waistcoats ! Yonder he is giv- 
ing a shilling to the sweeper who calls him " Capting ; " now 
he is offering a paletot to a huge giant who is going out in the 
rain. They don't know their own pictures, very likely ; if they 
did, they would have a meeting, and thirty or forty of them 

41 



642 CK/TICAL REVTFAVS. 

would be deputed to thrasli Mr. Leech. One feels a pity for 
the poor little bucks. In a minute or two, when we close this 
discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen such. 

Ere we shut the desk up, just one -word to point out to the 
unwary specially to note the back grounds of landscapes in 
Leech's drawings — homely drawings of moor and wood, and 
sea-shore and London street-^the scenes of his little dramas. 
/They are as excellently true to nature as the actors themselves ; 
our respect for the genius and humor which invented both in- 
creases as we look and look again at the designs. May we 
have more of them ; more pleasant (..'hristmas volumes, over 
which we and our children can laugh together. Can we have 
too much of truth, and fun, and beauty, and kindness ? 



EB-CCH SIOEGAirS SOHS' 




wmmm 



GLBAH3 

WINDOWS, 
MARBLE, 

HIVES, 

POLISHES 
TIN-WA , 



80BMER 



The demands now made by an educated musical public arc so 
exacting, that very few pi no-forte manufacturers can produce instru- 
ments that will stand the test v.'hich merit requires. 

SOHMER & Co., as manufacturers, rank among this chosen few, 
-who are acknowledged to be makers of standard instruments. la 
these days when many manufacturers urge the low price of their 
■wares, rather than their superior quality, as an inducement to pur- 
chase, it may not be amiss to suggest that, in a piano, quality and 
price are toe inseparably joined, to expect the one without the other. 

Every piano ought to be judged as to the quality of its tone, its 
touch and its workmanship ; if any one of these is wanting in esceh 
leuce, however good the others may be, the instrument will be imper- 
fect. It is the combination of all th se qualities in the highest degree 
that constitutes the perfect piano, and it is such a combination, as has 
given the SOHMER its liono rable positi on with the trade and public. 

^^ —— — ~ — — " ' Pricesasreasonableasconsiotent 

v.'ith the Highest Standard. 

!49 to 155 East 14111 SI, NX 



jiven the SOHMER its liono rable positi on 

SOHM£Il 



STANDARD PyBLICATIO^S. 



Chas. Dickens' Complete Works, 

15 Vols., ]-2mo, cloth, i:\\t, S22.5U. 
W. EE. Thackeray's Complete 
Works, li Yi>l»., l;iiuo, cloth, gilt, 
$16.50. 



Georg-e Eliot's Complete Works, 

8 \ ols.. 12mo. cloth, gilt, SlO-00. 
Plutarch's Lives of Illustrioua 
Men 3 Tok., 12mo. cloth, gilt, 
, S'i.50.' 
JOHN W. LOVEL.L CO., Publishers, 

14 AND 16 Veset Street, X::w Yobk. 



STANDARD PUBLSCATIO^IS. 



Kollins' Ancient History, 4 Vols., 

l-2mo, cloth, j^ilt, $0.00. 
Chcirles Knig-lit's Popular His- 
tory of England, u V-.:.i., lOuio, 
oiotU, gilt top, §"iJi.UiJ. 

JOHN ^v. 



Loveirs Series of Bed Line 
Poets, r.O Volumes of all the best 
woikd of the worhrs preat Poets, 
1'(jiiny.son, Shakespeare, Milton. ;Mcre- 
dith, lucelow, Proctor, Scort, Byron, 
Dante, itc, gl.i35 per volume. 

LOVELL. CO., Publishers. 

14 i^a l(i Vi;i:-v St;iset, ^Iew York. 



r^- 




KEYST©I^E ORGA 



The finest organ in the 
B Xarhet. Price reduced 
from $175 to $125. Acclimatized case. Anti-Shoddy and AntiO.Ionopoly. Kot all case, 
etops, top and advertisement. Warranted for 6 years. Has the Excelsior 18-Stop 
Combination, embracmg Diapason, Flute, ]Melodia-Forte, Violina, Acolina, Viola, 
Flute-Forte, Celeste, Dulcet, Echo, Melodia, Celestina, Octave CoTipler, Trcmelo, 
Sub-Bass, Cello, Grand-OrgraH Air Brake, G-rand-Org-an Swell. Two Knee- 
Stops. This is a Walnut case, with Music Balcony, Sliding Desk, Side ITandles, <tc. 
Dimensions ; Height, 75 Inches, Length, 48 inches; Depth, 24 inches. This 5-Octavo 
Organ, with Stool, Cook and Music, we will box and deliver at dock in New York, for 
$125. Send by express, prepaid, check, or registered letter to 

nCKINSOlT & CO., Pianos and Organs, 

19 West nth Street, New York. 



K,H:aE]>TTiL."^ Fu:eiL.is:H:H:rD, 



Attractive new editions of ihe followiDg celebrated works of Sir Edward 
Bulwer, Lord Lyttoa, 

By LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol., 12^0., large type, good paper, well bound, cloth, gilt, SlOO; also in 
LovcU's Library, handsome paper cover, 20 cents. 

Tills work is happily conceived and ably executed. It is flowing and grace- 
ful in style and both piques and rewards the curiosity of the reader. 



THE COMING RACE; 

Or, THE NEW UTOPIA. 

By LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol., 12mo., large, clear t^^pe, good paper, attractive cover, 10 cents. 

Without deciding on the comparative share of imagination and memory in 
the concoction of the work, we may pronounce it one of the most attractive 
books of the many interesting volumes of this popular author. 



A STRANGE STORY. 



By LORD LYTTON. 



1 vol.. 12mo , cloth, gilt, $1.00; also in Loveirs Library, handsome cover, 
20 cents. 

The plot shows discrimination of jiidgment as well as force of expression, 
and it(3 vigor of conception and brilliancy oi description makes it one of nis 
most readable novels. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE; 

Or, The House and the Brain, to which is added, Calderon, the 
Courtier. 

By LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol., 12mo., large type, good paper, handsome cover, 10 cents. 
This is a weird imaginative creation of singular power, showing intensity of 
conception and a knowledge of the remarkable effects of spiritual inflnencts. 
Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on application. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, New York. 



LOVELL'S LiMaRY ADVERTISER. 



HEART AND SCIENCE. 



By NA^ILKIE COLLINS. 



1 Vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt. 

1 " " paper 

Also in Loveira Library, 



.SLOO 
50 

Ko:'87.::;::::::::'::::;:.;.--"'.-' 20 



" -Reninlia" is a sinsrularly interesting;, and, in a way, fascinating creation. 
Mr cShTrxnd'aUtron-lywithaBt ong situation, but he has done nothing 
more poweVr:;; than hi. skcfch of Bcnjul.a;,.)a.t hours^ ^^^^ ^f^'^K^^o'l a^"a 
ftTP ranital examples of genuine and unforced humor; and the book, as a 
whole^ls thoroughly readable and enthralling from its first page to its last."- 
J.carfemi/. coUins' latest novel is certainly one of the ablest he has writ- 

ten ft is qui eVhe equal of 'The Woman in White' and of 'The Moon- 
^fonP ' cinslquently it may truthfully be described as a masterpiece in the 
peculiar SSr^^^ which Mr. C-illins not only excels, bnt distances e^-ery 

?iv^ in the walk of iiteralure he has marked oat for himseir. Heart and 
Scienc^ Is in fts way a great novel, certainly the best wc have ee^en f rom M . 
W iki^ Collins'since ' The Woman in White ' and ' Armada e.' --Morning Post 

- We doubt whether the author has everwritten a cleverer story. . . An 

eloauent and touching tribute to the blessedness and power of a true and 

1 ovrn^ hecfrr The book unites in a high degree the att.ractions of thrilling nar- 

rali^^^amf clever portraiture of characfer, of sound wisaom and real humor.' - 

Congregationalist. 

By OUIDA. 

SI 00 

lTol.,12mo., cloth gilt. '*' gQ 

1 " " paper • -jk 

Also in Loveirs Library, No. 112, 2 parts, each ... ..... ... . • • . .15 

•"W^inda' is the story by which Ouida will probably be judge^d by the 
literary hsoSano he future, for it is distinguished by all ber hi.'h men te 
and S di4 mred oy any one of her few defects. In pouitof construction this 
most rece t contribution to the fictional literature of the_ day is perfect: the 
SaloJaesar. both brilliant and stirring, and t''edescnptive passages ar^yma - 
uid,iu,in.n '^^^ . . 1^ brif^htett and be-t in 'Wanda' the book tbiilis 

hTrSma^ frn«S?aid''deUgt"b, Its singa 

novel in pLS or dollneatiag c"Laracter aud describiug scenery. Wanda is a 

''"^.^'plwlS.'^tn^cin-afat^nove^ deeply intereating,;^^^^^^ 

?ro\rP«?'-d"efe.^S'rtrr.llT'Seo,'r^^^ 

"-'?'-^m5£-???f.'aii?tuch that is striking,. T^e eenM Idea is taely 
worked out. We have seen uothiag from Ouida s pen that siiike-. us as bun„, 
on the whole, so well couceived and so skilfully wrought oat. -bpectalm . 

JOHN V/. LOVELL CO., 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, New York- 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY -CATALOGUE. 



113 

114, 

115, 

116, 
117, 
118, 
119, 
120, 
121. 
122, 
123, 
124, 

125, 



127. 

128, 
129. 
130. 
131. 
132. 

133. 



134. 
135. 
136. 
137. 
138. 
139. 
140. 
141. 
142, 

143 
144. 

145. 

146. 
147. 
148. 
149. 
150. 

151. 
152. 
153. 

154. 
155. 
156, 

157. 

158. 



161. 



More Words About the Bible, 

by Rev. Jas. S. Bush. 20 

Monsieur Lecoq , Gaboriau Pt. I . . 20 

' Monsieur Lecoq, Pt. II .20 

An Outline of Irish History, by 

Justin 11. McCarthy 10 

TheLerougeCase, by Gaboriau.. 20 
Paul Clifford, by Lord Lytton. . .20 
A New Lease of Life, by About. .20 

Bourbon Lilies 20 

Other People's Money, <^boriau.20 
The Lady of Lyons, Lytton. ..10 

Amellne de Bourg 15 

A Sea Queen, by W. Russell 20 

The Ladies Lindores, by Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

Haunted Hearts, by Simpson 10 

Loys, Lord Beresford, by The 

Duchess 20 

Under Two Flags, Ouida, Pt. I. . 15 

Under Two Flags, Pt. 11 15 

Money, by Lord Lytton 10 

In Peril of His Life, by Gaboriau.20 

India, bv Max Miiller 20 

Jets and Flashes 20 

Moonshine and Marguerites, by 

The Duchess „ ...10 

Mr. Scarborough's ^Family, by 

Anthony Trollope, Part 1 15 

Mr Scarborough's Familv, PtII 15 
Arden, by A. Mary F. Ro'biu8on.l5 

The Tower of Percemout 20 

Yolande, by Wm. Black 20 

Cruel London, by Joseph Hatton.20 
The Gilded Clique, by Gabnriau.20 
Pike County Folks, E. H. Mott. .20 

Cricket on the Hearth 10 

Henry Esmond, by Thackeray.. 20 
Strange Adventures of a Phae- 
ton, by Wm. Black 20 

Denis Duval, by Thackeray 10 

Old Curiosity Shop,Dicken8,PtI.15 
Old Curiosity Shop, Part 11. . . .15 

Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part 1 15 

Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part 11 15 

Whit* Wings, by Wm. Black.. 20 

The Sketch Book, by Irving 20 

Catherine, by W. M. Thackeray.lO 
Janet's Repentance, by Eliot.... 10 
Barnaby Rudge, Dickens, Pt I. . 15 

Barnabv Rudge, Part II 15 

Felix Holt, by George Eliot. . . .20 

Richel ieu, by Lord Lytton 10 

Sunrise, by Wm. Black, Part I. .15 
Sunrise, by Wm. Black. Part 11.15 
Toilr of the World in 80 Days. .20 
Mystery of Orcival, Gaboriau ... .20 
Lovel, the Widower, by W. M. 

Thackeray 10 

Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 
maid, by Thomas Ilanly 10 

David Copperfield, Dicken8,Pt 1.20 

David Copperfield, i^art II 20 

Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Part I . . 15 
Ri«nzi, by Lord Lytton, Part II. 15 
Promise of Marriage, Gaboriau. .10 
Faith and Unfaith, by The 
Duchess... , JO 



163. 
164. 
165. 
16C. 

167. 

168, 

169. 
170. 
171. 

172. 
173. 
174. 

175 
176 
177. 
178. 
179. 
180. 
181. 
182. 
183. 
18-1. 

185. 



18G. 



190. 
191. 
192. 
193. 

194. 
195. 

195. 
1S7. 

198. 
199. 



200. 
201. 



;:03. 

204. 
205. 



Tuc5 Happy Man, by Lover... 10 
Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray.... 20 

Eyre's Acquittal 10 

Twen'y Thousand Leagues Un- 
der the Sea, by Julea Verne 20 

Anti-Slavery Days, by James 

Freeman Clarke .-20 

Beauty's Daughters, by The 

Duchess 20 

Beyond the Sunrise 20 ' 

Hard Times, by Charles Dickens. 20 
Tom Cringle's Log, by M.Scott.. 20 
Vanity Fair, by W.M.Thackeray.20 
Underground Russia, Stepniak..20 
Middleraarch, by Elliot, Pt I.... 20 

Middlemarch, Part II 20 

SirTom, by Mrs. Oliphant 20 

Pelham, by Lord Lytton 20 

The Story of Ida 10 

Madcap Violet, by Wm. Black. .20 

The Little Pilgrim 10 

Kilmeny, by Wm. Black 20 

Whist, or Bumblepnppy? 10 

The Beautiful Wretch, Black. ...20 
Her Mother's Sin, by B. M. Ciay.80 
Green Pastures and Piccadilly, 

by Wm. Black 20 

The Mysterious Island, by Juleg 

Verne, Part 1 15 

The Mysterious Island, Part II. .15 
The Mysterious Island, Part III.1.'> 
Tom Brown at Oxford, Part I ... IE 
'^':om Brown at Oxford, Fart II. . 16 
Thicker than Water, by J. Payn.2i ' 
In Silk Attire, by Wm. Black. . .20 
Scottish Chiefs, Jane Porter,Pt.L20 

Scottish Chiefs, Part II 20 

Willy Reilly, by Will Carleton..2C » 
The Nam Family, by She!ley.2t' j 
Great Expectations, by Dickens. fC 
Pendennig,by Thackeray, Part 1.20 
Pendennis.by Thackeray ,Part J 1.20 

Widow Bedott Papers 

Daniel Deronda,Geo. Eliot,Pl. I.2& 

Daniel Deronda, Part II 20 

Altiora Peto, by Oliphant 30 

By the Gate of the Sea, by David 

Christie Murray 1{ 

Tales of a Traveller, by Irving. . .20 
Life and Voyages ef Columbus, 

by Washington Irving, Part I. .2 
Life and Voyages of Columbus, 

by Washington Irving, Part II. 2C* 

The Pilgrim's Progress 20 

Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charlei 

Dickens, Part I JO 

Martm Chuzzlewit, Part II 20 

Theophrastus Such, Geo. Eliot. . .20 
Disarmed, M. Betham-Edwards..l5 
Eugene Aram, by Lord Lytton. 20 
The :;^panish Gypsy and Other 

Poems, by George Eliot 2 

Cast Up by the Sea. Baker JO 

Mill on the Floss, Eliot, Pt. I. ..15 

Mill on the Floss, Part II 1» 

Brother Jacob, and Mr. Gilfll'* 

Love Story, by George Eliot. , .10 
Wrecks In the Sea of Lif« , M 



BHAQJ Aim 



'*tf^ 



LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 




D. 



014 548 531 9 




Vitalized Phos-phites, 

COiyCPOSED OF THE NERVE-GIVING PRINCIPLES OF 
THE OX-BRAIN AND WHEAT-GERM. 

It restores the energy lost by Nervousness or Indigestion ; relieves 
Lassitude and Neuralgia; refreshes the nerves tired by worry, excite- 
ment, or excessive brain fatigue ; strengthens a failing memory, and 
f lives renewed vigor in all diseases of Nervous Exhaustion or Debility, 
t is the only PREVENTIVE FOR CONSUMPTION. 

It aids iDonderfidly in the mental and hodUy growth of infants and 
children. Under its use the teeth come easier, the bones grow better, the skin 
plumper and smoother; the brain acquires more readily, and rests arid sleeps 
more sweetly. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusable ^peevish. 
It gives a happier and better childhood. 

"It is •mth the utmost confidence that I recommend this excellent pre- 
paration for the relief of indigestion and for general debility; nay, I do more 
than recommend, 1 really urge all invalids to put it to the test, for in sev- 
eral cases personally known to me signal benefits have been derived from 
Its use. I hare recently watched its effects on a young friend who has 
suffered from indigestion all her life. After taking the Vitalized Phos- 
PHITKS for a fortnight she said to me; * I feel another person; it is a pleas- 
ure to live. • Many hard-working men and women — especially those engaged 
in brain work — would be saved from the fatal resort to chloral and other 
destructive stimulants, if they would have recourse-to a remedy so simple 
and so efficacious. " 

Ehilt Faithpull. 

PnTSICIANS HATB PRESCRIBED OVER COO, 000 PACKAGES BKCAUBR THKT 

KMow ITS Composition, that it is not a skcrkt remedy, ajtd 

THAT THE FORMULA IS PRINTED ON BVERT LABKX* 

For Sale by Drusfirlst* or bx SKall. #x. 

F. CR0SB7 CO., 664 and 666 Sixth ATtnus, ITewTork. 



